Secure data replication to, and recovery of data from, air-gapped data storage pools

ABSTRACT

An illustrative air-gapped data storage site for storing secure copies at the air-gapped storage site. Using specialized air-gapped media agents installed within the air-gapped storage pool site, the illustrative system, at an unpredictable time, establishes a one-way tunnel from secondary storage site to air-gapped site to receive backup copies of the data stored at primary site. In another embodiment, during disaster recovery, backup copies stored within the air-gapped site are replicated to a non-air gapped site (e.g., secondary storage pools) as “tertiary copies.” Those copies are then restored to the primary site in original application data formats for quick recovery. As restoration of data is complete, the tertiary copies are promoted to “secondary copies” to receive incremental backups.

INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE TO ANY PRIORITY APPLICATIONS

The present application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional PatentApplication No. 63/356,844, filed Jun. 29, 2022. Any and allapplications, if any, for which a foreign or domestic priority claim isidentified in the Application Data Sheet of the present application arehereby incorporated by reference in their entireties under 37 CFR 1.57.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentand/or the patent disclosure as it appears in the United States Patentand Trademark Office patent file and/or records, but otherwise reservesall copyrights whatsoever.

BACKGROUND

Businesses recognize the commercial value of their data and seekreliable, cost-effective ways to protect the information stored on theircomputer networks while minimizing impact on productivity. A companymight back up critical computing systems such as databases, fileservers, web servers, virtual machines, and so on as part of a routineschedule. The company may similarly protect computing systems used byits employees, such as those used by an accounting department, marketingdepartment, engineering department, and so forth. Enterprises alsoincreasingly view their stored data as a vital asset and seek solutionswith highest security to protect secondary copies of their data that maybe stored in secure or air-gapped environments.

In secure or air-gapped computing systems, external computing devicescannot access the storage pools managed by such systems. The computingdevices of such systems are configured to reject any connections outsideof its environment. This configuration limits spread of malware orransomware to the secure systems and thereby protecting the data managedand stored in this environment.

SUMMARY

The systems and methods described herein provide solutions to increasesecurity at air-gapped storage sites.

At an illustrative air-gapped data storage pool site, using specializedair-gapped media agents deployed within the air-gapped storage poolsite, the illustrative system, at an unpredictable time, establishes aone-way data connection from a secondary storage site to the air-gappeddata storage site to receive secondary (e.g., backup) copies of theprimary data stored at a primary site. The air-gapped data storage poolsite maybe implemented within a cloud-based environment.

During disaster recovery, backup copies stored within the air-gappeddata storage site are replicated to a non-air gapped site (e.g.,secondary storage pools) as “tertiary copies.” Those copies are thenrestored to the primary site in original application data formats forquick recovery and availability. As the restoration of the primary datais complete, the tertiary copies may be promoted to “secondary copies.”Under a “secondary copy” status, the backed-up data is treated astypical secondary copy and maintained pursuant to information managementpolicies associated with it. This includes receiving incrementalbackups, pruning, aging, etc.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A is a block diagram illustrating an example informationmanagement system.

FIG. 1B is a detailed view of a primary storage device, a secondarystorage device, and some examples of primary data and secondary copydata.

FIG. 1C is a block diagram of an example information management systemincluding a storage manager, one or more data agents, and one or moremedia agents.

FIG. 1D is a block diagram illustrating a scalable informationmanagement system.

FIG. 1E illustrates certain secondary copy operations according to anexample storage policy.

FIGS. 1F-1H are block diagrams illustrating suitable data structuresthat may be employed by the information management system.

FIG. 2A illustrates a system and technique for synchronizing primarydata to a destination such as a failover site using secondary copy data.

FIG. 2B illustrates an information management system architectureincorporating use of a network file system (NFS) protocol forcommunicating between the primary and secondary storage subsystems.

FIG. 2C is a block diagram of an example of a highly scalable manageddata pool architecture.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a scalable information managementsystem comprising air-gapped configuration environment.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating a scalable information managementsystem comprising air-gapped configuration for testing secure copieswithin an air-gapped data storage site.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating a scalable information managementsystem comprising air-gapped configuration during a disaster recoveryprocess from an air-gapped data storage site.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of an embodiment for secure-copy replication toair-gapped data storage environment.

FIG. 7 is a flow diagram of an embodiment for testing secure-copies atan air-gapped data storage site.

FIG. 8 is flow diagram of an embodiment for recovering a securecopy(ies) from an air-gapped data storage pool.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Detailed descriptions and examples of systems and methods according toone or more illustrative embodiments of the present invention may befound in the section entitled Air-Gapped Storage Pools, as well as inthe section entitled Example Embodiments, and also in FIGS. 3-8 herein.Furthermore, components and functionality for creating secure copies inan air-gapped storage pool and recovering data from air-gapped storagepools may be configured and/or incorporated into information managementsystems such as those described herein in FIGS. 1A-1H and 2A-2C. Variousembodiments described herein are intimately tied to, enabled by, andwould not exist except for, computer technology. For example, creatingsecure copies in an air-gapped storage pool and recovering data fromair-gapped storage pools described herein in reference to variousembodiments cannot reasonably be performed by humans alone, without thecomputer technology upon which they are implemented.

Information Management System Overview

With the increasing importance of protecting and leveraging data,organizations simply cannot risk losing critical data. Moreover, runawaydata growth and other modern realities make protecting and managing dataincreasingly difficult. There is therefore a need for efficient,powerful, and user-friendly solutions for protecting and managing dataand for smart and efficient management of data storage. Depending on thesize of the organization, there may be many data production sourceswhich are under the purview of tens, hundreds, or even thousands ofindividuals. In the past, individuals were sometimes responsible formanaging and protecting their own data, and a patchwork of hardware andsoftware point solutions may have been used in any given organization.These solutions were often provided by different vendors and had limitedor no interoperability. Certain embodiments described herein addressthese and other shortcomings of prior approaches by implementingscalable, unified, organization-wide information management, includingdata storage management.

FIG. 1A shows one such information management system 100 (or “system100”), which generally includes combinations of hardware and softwareconfigured to protect and manage data and metadata that are generatedand used by computing devices in system 100. System 100 may be referredto in some embodiments as a “storage management system” or a “datastorage management system.” System 100 performs information managementoperations, some of which may be referred to as “storage operations” or“data storage operations,” to protect and manage the data residing inand/or managed by system 100. The organization that employs system 100may be a corporation or other business entity, non-profit organization,educational institution, household, governmental agency, or the like.

Generally, the systems and associated components described herein may becompatible with and/or provide some or all of the functionality of thesystems and corresponding components described in one or more of thefollowing U.S. patents/publications and patent applications assigned toCommvault Systems, Inc., each of which is hereby incorporated byreference in its entirety herein:

-   -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,035,880, entitled “Modular Backup and Retrieval        System Used in Conjunction With a Storage Area Network”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,107,298, entitled “System And Method For        Archiving Objects In An Information Store”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,246,207, entitled “System and Method for        Dynamically Performing Storage Operations in a Computer        Network”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,315,923, entitled “System And Method For        Combining Data Streams In Pipelined Storage Operations In A        Storage Network”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453, entitled “Hierarchical Systems and        Methods for Providing a Unified View of Storage Information”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,395,282, entitled “Hierarchical Backup and        Retrieval System”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,529,782, entitled “System and Methods for        Performing a Snapshot and for Restoring Data”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,617,262, entitled “System and Methods for        Monitoring Application Data in a Data Replication System”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,734,669, entitled “Managing Copies Of Data”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,747,579, entitled “Metabase for Facilitating        Data Classification”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,156,086, entitled “Systems And Methods For        Stored Data Verification”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,170,995, entitled “Method and System for Offline        Indexing of Content and Classifying Stored Data”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,230,195, entitled “System And Method For        Performing Auxiliary Storage Operations”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,285,681, entitled “Data Object Store and Server        for a Cloud Storage Environment, Including Data Deduplication        and Data Management Across Multiple Cloud Storage Sites”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,307,177, entitled “Systems And Methods For        Management Of Virtualization Data”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,364,652, entitled “Content-Aligned, Block-Based        Deduplication”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,578,120, entitled “Block-Level Single        Instancing”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,954,446, entitled “Client-Side Repository in a        Networked Deduplicated Storage System”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 9,020,900, entitled “Distributed Deduplicated        Storage System”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 9,098,495, entitled “Application-Aware and Remote        Single Instance Data Management”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 9,239,687, entitled “Systems and Methods for        Retaining and Using Data Block Signatures in Data Protection        Operations”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 9,444,811, entitled “Using An Enhanced Data Agent        To Restore Backed Up Data Across Autonomous Storage Management        Systems”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 9,633,033 entitled “High Availability Distributed        Deduplicated Storage System”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 10,228,962 entitled “Live Synchronization and        Management of Virtual Machines across Computing and        Virtualization Platforms and Using Live Synchronization to        Support Disaster Recovery”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 10,255,143 entitled “Deduplication Replication In        A Distributed Deduplication Data Storage System”    -   U.S. Pat. No. 10,592,145, entitled “Machine Learning-Based Data        Object Storage”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 10,684,924 entitled “Data Restoration Operations        Based on Network Path Information”;    -   U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2006/0224846, entitled “System and Method        to Support Single Instance Storage Operations” now abandoned;    -   U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2016/0350391 entitled “Replication Using        Deduplicated Secondary Copy Data” now abandoned;    -   U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2017/0235647 entitled “Data Protection        Operations Based on Network Path Information” now abandoned; and    -   U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2019/0108341 entitled “Ransomware Detection        And Data Pruning Management” now abandoned.

System 100 includes computing devices and computing technologies. Forinstance, system 100 can include one or more client computing devices102 and secondary storage computing devices 106, as well as storagemanager 140 or a host computing device for it. Computing devices caninclude, without limitation, one or more: workstations, personalcomputers, desktop computers, or other types of generally fixedcomputing systems such as mainframe computers, servers, andminicomputers. Other computing devices can include mobile or portablecomputing devices, such as one or more laptops, tablet computers,personal data assistants, mobile phones (such as smartphones), and othermobile or portable computing devices such as embedded computers, set topboxes, vehicle-mounted devices, wearable computers, etc. Servers caninclude mail servers, file servers, database servers, virtual machineservers, and web servers. Any given computing device comprises one ormore hardware processors (e.g., CPU and/or single-core or multi-coreprocessors), as well as corresponding non-transitory computer memory(e.g., random-access memory (RAM)) for storing computer programs whichare to be executed by the one or more hardware processors. Othercomputer memory for mass storage of data may be packaged/configured withthe computing device (e.g., an internal hard disk) and/or may beexternal and accessible by the computing device (e.g., network-attachedstorage, a storage array, etc.). In some cases, a computing deviceincludes cloud computing resources, which may be implemented as virtualmachines. For instance, one or more virtual machines may be provided tothe organization by a third-party cloud service vendor.

In some embodiments, computing devices can include one or more virtualmachine(s) running on a physical host computing device (or “hostmachine”) operated by the organization. As one example, the organizationmay use one virtual machine as a database server and another virtualmachine as a mail server, both virtual machines operating on the samehost machine. A Virtual machine (“VM”) is a software implementation of acomputer that does not physically exist and is instead instantiated inan operating system of a physical computer (or host machine) to enableapplications to execute within the VM's environment, i.e., a VM emulatesa physical computer. A VM includes an operating system and associatedvirtual resources, such as computer memory and processor(s). Ahypervisor operates between the VM and the hardware of the physical hostmachine and is generally responsible for creating and running the VMs.Hypervisors are also known in the art as virtual machine monitors or avirtual machine managers or “VMMs”, and may be implemented in software,firmware, and/or specialized hardware installed on the host machine.Examples of hypervisors include ESX Server, by VMware, Inc. of PaloAlto, California; Microsoft Virtual Server and Microsoft Windows ServerHyper-V, both by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Washington; Sun xVMby Oracle America Inc. of Santa Clara, California; and Xen by CitrixSystems, Santa Clara, California. The hypervisor provides resources toeach virtual operating system such as a virtual processor, virtualmemory, a virtual network device, and a virtual disk. Each virtualmachine has one or more associated virtual disks. The hypervisortypically stores the data of virtual disks in files on the file systemof the physical host machine, called virtual machine disk files (“VMDK”in VMware lingo) or virtual hard disk image files (in Microsoft lingo).For example, VMware's ESX Server provides the Virtual Machine FileSystem (VMFS) for the storage of virtual machine disk files. A virtualmachine reads data from and writes data to its virtual disk much the waythat a physical machine reads data from and writes data to a physicaldisk. Examples of techniques for implementing information management ina cloud computing environment are described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,285,681.Examples of techniques for implementing information management in avirtualized computing environment are described in U.S. Pat. No.8,307,177.

Information management system 100 can also include electronic datastorage devices, generally used for mass storage of data, including,e.g., primary storage devices 104 and secondary storage devices 108.Storage devices can generally be of any suitable type including, withoutlimitation, disk drives, storage arrays (e.g., storage-area network(SAN) and/or network-attached storage (NAS) technology), semiconductormemory (e.g., solid state storage devices), network attached storage(NAS) devices, tape libraries, or other magnetic, non-tape storagedevices, optical media storage devices, combinations of the same, etc.In some embodiments, storage devices form part of a distributed filesystem. In some cases, storage devices are provided in a cloud storageenvironment (e.g., a private cloud or one operated by a third-partyvendor), whether for primary data or secondary copies or both. Dependingon context, the term “information management system” can refer togenerally all of the illustrated hardware and software components inFIG. 1C, or the term may refer to only a subset of the illustratedcomponents. For instance, in some cases, system 100 generally refers toa combination of specialized components used to protect, move, manage,manipulate, analyze, and/or process data and metadata generated byclient computing devices 102. However, system 100 in some cases does notinclude the underlying components that generate and/or store primarydata 112, such as the client computing devices 102 themselves, and theprimary storage devices 104. Likewise secondary storage devices 108(e.g., a third-party provided cloud storage environment) may not be partof system 100. As an example, “information management system” or“storage management system” may sometimes refer to one or more of thefollowing components, which will be described in further detail below:storage manager, data agent, and media agent.

One or more client computing devices 102 may be part of system 100, eachclient computing device 102 having an operating system and at least oneapplication 110 and one or more accompanying data agents executingthereon; and associated with one or more primary storage devices 104storing primary data 112. Client computing device(s) 102 and primarystorage devices 104 may generally be referred to in some cases asprimary storage subsystem 117.

Client Computing Devices, Clients, and Subclients

Typically, a variety of sources in an organization produce data to beprotected and managed. As just one illustrative example, in a corporateenvironment such data sources can be employee workstations and companyservers such as a mail server, a web server, a database server, atransaction server, or the like. In system 100, data generation sourcesinclude one or more client computing devices 102. A computing devicethat has a data agent 142 installed and operating on it is generallyreferred to as a “client computing device” 102, and may include any typeof computing device, without limitation. A client computing device 102may be associated with one or more users and/or user accounts.

A “client” is a logical component of information management system 100,which may comprise a logical grouping of one or more data agentsinstalled on a client computing device 102. Storage manager 140recognizes a client as a component of system 100, and in someembodiments, may automatically create a client component the first timea data agent 142 is installed on a client computing device 102. Becausedata generated by executable component(s) 110 is tracked by theassociated data agent 142 so that it may be properly protected in system100, a client may be said to generate data and to store the generateddata to primary storage, such as primary storage device 104. However,the terms “client” and “client computing device” as used herein do notimply that a client computing device 102 is necessarily configured inthe client/server sense relative to another computing device such as amail server, or that a client computing device 102 cannot be a server inits own right. As just a few examples, a client computing device 102 canbe and/or include mail servers, file servers, database servers, virtualmachine servers, and/or web servers.

Each client computing device 102 may have application(s) 110 executingthereon which generate and manipulate the data that is to be protectedfrom loss and managed in system 100. Applications 110 generallyfacilitate the operations of an organization, and can include, withoutlimitation, mail server applications (e.g., Microsoft Exchange Server),file system applications, mail client applications (e.g., MicrosoftExchange Client), database applications or database management systems(e.g., SQL, Oracle, SAP, Lotus Notes Database), word processingapplications (e.g., Microsoft Word), spreadsheet applications, financialapplications, presentation applications, graphics and/or videoapplications, browser applications, mobile applications, entertainmentapplications, and so on. Each application 110 may be accompanied by anapplication-specific data agent 142, though not all data agents 142 areapplication-specific or associated with only application. A file managerapplication, e.g., Microsoft Windows Explorer, may be considered anapplication 110 and may be accompanied by its own data agent 142. Clientcomputing devices 102 can have at least one operating system (e.g.,Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, IBM z/OS, Linux, other Unix-basedoperating systems, etc.) installed thereon, which may support or hostone or more file systems and other applications 110. In someembodiments, a virtual machine that executes on a host client computingdevice 102 may be considered an application 110 and may be accompaniedby a specific data agent 142 (e.g., virtual server data agent). Clientcomputing devices 102 and other components in system 100 can beconnected to one another via one or more electronic communicationpathways 114. For example, a first communication pathway 114 maycommunicatively couple client computing device 102 and secondary storagecomputing device 106; a second communication pathway 114 maycommunicatively couple storage manager 140 and client computing device102; and a third communication pathway 114 may communicatively couplestorage manager 140 and secondary storage computing device 106, etc.(see, e.g., FIG. 1A and FIG. 1C). A communication pathway 114 caninclude one or more networks or other connection types including one ormore of the following, without limitation: the Internet, a wide areanetwork (WAN), a local area network (LAN), a Storage Area Network (SAN),a Fibre Channel (FC) connection, a Small Computer System Interface(SCSI) connection, a virtual private network (VPN), a token ring orTCP/IP based network, an intranet network, a point-to-point link, acellular network, a wireless data transmission system, a two-way cablesystem, an interactive kiosk network, a satellite network, a broadbandnetwork, a baseband network, a neural network, a mesh network, an ad hocnetwork, other appropriate computer or telecommunications networks,combinations of the same or the like. Communication pathways 114 in somecases may also include application programming interfaces (APIs)including, e.g., cloud service provider APIs, virtual machine managementAPIs, and hosted service provider APIs. The underlying infrastructure ofcommunication pathways 114 may be wired and/or wireless, analog and/ordigital, or any combination thereof; and the facilities used may beprivate, public, third-party provided, or any combination thereof,without limitation.

A “subclient” is a logical grouping of all or part of a client's primarydata 112. Thus, a subclient is a data source. In general, a subclientmay be defined according to how the subclient data is to be protected asa unit in system 100. For example, a subclient may be associated with acertain storage policy. A given client may thus comprise severalsubclients, each subclient associated with a different storage policy.For example, some files may form a first subclient that requirescompression and deduplication and is associated with a first storagepolicy. Other files of the client may form a second subclient thatrequires a different retention schedule as well as encryption, and maybe associated with a different, second storage policy. As a result,though the primary data may be generated by the same application 110 andmay belong to one given client, portions of the data may be assigned todifferent subclients for distinct treatment by system 100. More detailon subclients is given in regard to storage policies below.

Primary Data and Example Primary Storage Devices

Primary data 112 is generally production data or “live” data generatedby the operating system and/or applications 110 executing on clientcomputing device 102. Primary data 112 is generally stored on primarystorage device(s) 104 and is organized via a file system operating onthe client computing device 102. Thus, client computing device(s) 102and corresponding applications 110 may create, access, modify, write,delete, and otherwise use primary data 112. Primary data 112 isgenerally in the native format of the source application 110. Primarydata 112 is an initial or first stored body of data generated by thesource application 110. Primary data 112 in some cases is createdsubstantially directly from data generated by the corresponding sourceapplication 110. It can be useful in performing certain tasks toorganize primary data 112 into units of different granularities. Ingeneral, primary data 112 can include files, directories, file systemvolumes, data blocks, extents, or any other hierarchies or organizationsof data objects. As used herein, a “data object” can refer to (i) anyfile that is currently addressable by a file system or that waspreviously addressable by the file system (e.g., an archive file),and/or to (ii) a subset of such a file (e.g., a data block, an extent,etc.). Primary data 112 may include structured data (e.g., databasefiles), unstructured data (e.g., documents), and/or semi-structureddata. See, e.g., FIG. 1B.

It can also be useful in performing certain functions of system 100 toaccess and modify metadata within primary data 112. Metadata generallyincludes information about data objects and/or characteristicsassociated with the data objects. For simplicity herein, it is to beunderstood that, unless expressly stated otherwise, any reference toprimary data 112 generally also includes its associated metadata, butreferences to metadata generally do not include the primary data.Metadata can include, without limitation, one or more of the following:the data owner (e.g., the client or user that generates the data), thelast modified time (e.g., the time of the most recent modification ofthe data object), a data object name (e.g., a file name), a data objectsize (e.g., a number of bytes of data), information about the content(e.g., an indication as to the existence of a particular search term),user-supplied tags, to/from information for email (e.g., an emailsender, recipient, etc.), creation date, file type (e.g., format orapplication type), last accessed time, application type (e.g., type ofapplication that generated the data object), location/network (e.g., acurrent, past or future location of the data object and network pathwaysto/from the data object), geographic location (e.g., GPS coordinates),frequency of change (e.g., a period in which the data object ismodified), business unit (e.g., a group or department that generates,manages or is otherwise associated with the data object), aginginformation (e.g., a schedule, such as a time period, in which the dataobject is migrated to secondary or long term storage), boot sectors,partition layouts, file location within a file folder directorystructure, user permissions, owners, groups, access control lists(ACLs), system metadata (e.g., registry information), combinations ofthe same or other similar information related to the data object. Inaddition to metadata generated by or related to file systems andoperating systems, some applications 110 and/or other components ofsystem 100 maintain indices of metadata for data objects, e.g., metadataassociated with individual email messages. The use of metadata toperform classification and other functions is described in greaterdetail below.

Primary storage devices 104 storing primary data 112 may be relativelyfast and/or expensive technology (e.g., flash storage, a disk drive, ahard-disk storage array, solid state memory, etc.), typically to supporthigh-performance live production environments. Primary data 112 may behighly changeable and/or may be intended for relatively short termretention (e.g., hours, days, or weeks). According to some embodiments,client computing device 102 can access primary data 112 stored inprimary storage device 104 by making conventional file system calls viathe operating system. Each client computing device 102 is generallyassociated with and/or in communication with one or more primary storagedevices 104 storing corresponding primary data 112. A client computingdevice 102 is said to be associated with or in communication with aparticular primary storage device 104 if it is capable of one or moreof: routing and/or storing data (e.g., primary data 112) to the primarystorage device 104, coordinating the routing and/or storing of data tothe primary storage device 104, retrieving data from the primary storagedevice 104, coordinating the retrieval of data from the primary storagedevice 104, and modifying and/or deleting data in the primary storagedevice 104. Thus, a client computing device 102 may be said to accessdata stored in an associated storage device 104. Primary storage device104 may be dedicated or shared. In some cases, each primary storagedevice 104 is dedicated to an associated client computing device 102,e.g., a local disk drive. In other cases, one or more primary storagedevices 104 can be shared by multiple client computing devices 102,e.g., via a local network, in a cloud storage implementation, etc. Asone example, primary storage device 104 can be a storage array shared bya group of client computing devices 102, such as EMC Clariion, EMCSymmetrix, EMC Celerra, Dell EqualLogic, IBM XIV, NetApp FAS, HP EVA,and HP 3 PAR.

System 100 may also include hosted services (not shown), which may behosted in some cases by an entity other than the organization thatemploys the other components of system 100. For instance, the hostedservices may be provided by online service providers. Such serviceproviders can provide social networking services, hosted email services,or hosted productivity applications or other hosted applications such assoftware-as-a-service (SaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), applicationservice providers (ASPs), cloud services, or other mechanisms fordelivering functionality via a network. As it services users, eachhosted service may generate additional data and metadata, which may bemanaged by system 100, e.g., as primary data 112. In some cases, thehosted services may be accessed using one of the applications 110. As anexample, a hosted mail service may be accessed via browser running on aclient computing device 102.

Secondary Copies and Example Secondary Storage Devices

Primary data 112 stored on primary storage devices 104 may becompromised in some cases, such as when an employee deliberately oraccidentally deletes or overwrites primary data 112. Or primary storagedevices 104 can be damaged, lost, or otherwise corrupted. For recoveryand/or regulatory compliance purposes, it is therefore useful togenerate and maintain copies of primary data 112. Accordingly, system100 includes one or more secondary storage computing devices 106 and oneor more secondary storage devices 108 configured to create and store oneor more secondary copies 116 of primary data 112 including itsassociated metadata. The secondary storage computing devices 106 and thesecondary storage devices 108 may be referred to as secondary storagesubsystem 118.

Secondary copies 116 can help in search and analysis efforts and meetother information management goals as well, such as: restoring dataand/or metadata if an original version is lost (e.g., by deletion,corruption, or disaster); allowing point-in-time recovery; complyingwith regulatory data retention and electronic discovery (e-discovery)requirements; reducing utilized storage capacity in the productionsystem and/or in secondary storage; facilitating organization and searchof data; improving user access to data files across multiple computingdevices and/or hosted services; and implementing data retention andpruning policies. A secondary copy 116 can comprise a separate storedcopy of data that is derived from one or more earlier-created storedcopies (e.g., derived from primary data 112 or from another secondarycopy 116). Secondary copies 116 can include point-in-time data, and maybe intended for relatively long-term retention before some or all of thedata is moved to other storage or discarded. In some cases, a secondarycopy 116 may be in a different storage device than other previouslystored copies; and/or may be remote from other previously stored copies.Secondary copies 116 can be stored in the same storage device as primarydata 112. For example, a disk array capable of performing hardwaresnapshots stores primary data 112 and creates and stores hardwaresnapshots of the primary data 112 as secondary copies 116. Secondarycopies 116 may be stored in relatively slow and/or lower cost storage(e.g., magnetic tape). A secondary copy 116 may be stored in a backup orarchive format, or in some other format different from the native sourceapplication format or other format of primary data 112.

Secondary storage computing devices 106 may index secondary copies 116(e.g., using a media agent 144), enabling users to browse and restore ata later time and further enabling the lifecycle management of theindexed data. After creation of a secondary copy 116 that representscertain primary data 112, a pointer or other location indicia (e.g., astub) may be placed in primary data 112, or be otherwise associated withprimary data 112, to indicate the current location of a particularsecondary copy 116. Since an instance of a data object or metadata inprimary data 112 may change over time as it is modified by application110 (or hosted service or the operating system), system 100 may createand manage multiple secondary copies 116 of a particular data object ormetadata, each copy representing the state of the data object in primarydata 112 at a particular point in time. Moreover, since an instance of adata object in primary data 112 may eventually be deleted from primarystorage device 104 and the file system, system 100 may continue tomanage point-in-time representations of that data object, even thoughthe instance in primary data 112 no longer exists. For virtual machines,the operating system and other applications 110 of client computingdevice(s) 102 may execute within or under the management ofvirtualization software (e.g., a VMM), and the primary storage device(s)104 may comprise a virtual disk created on a physical storage device.System 100 may create secondary copies 116 of the files or other dataobjects in a virtual disk file and/or secondary copies 116 of the entirevirtual disk file itself (e.g., of an entire .vmdk file).

Secondary copies 116 are distinguishable from corresponding primary data112. First, secondary copies 116 can be stored in a different formatfrom primary data 112 (e.g., backup, archive, or other non-nativeformat). For this or other reasons, secondary copies 116 may not bedirectly usable by applications 110 or client computing device 102(e.g., via standard system calls or otherwise) without modification,processing, or other intervention by system 100 which may be referred toas “restore” operations. Secondary copies 116 may have been processed bydata agent 142 and/or media agent 144 in the course of being created(e.g., compression, deduplication, encryption, integrity markers,indexing, formatting, application-aware metadata, etc.), and thussecondary copy 116 may represent source primary data 112 withoutnecessarily being exactly identical to the source. Second, secondarycopies 116 may be stored on a secondary storage device 108 that isinaccessible to application 110 running on client computing device 102and/or hosted service. Some secondary copies 116 may be “offlinecopies,” in that they are not readily available (e.g., not mounted totape or disk). Offline copies can include copies of data that system 100can access without human intervention (e.g., tapes within an automatedtape library, but not yet mounted in a drive), and copies that thesystem 100 can access only with some human intervention (e.g., tapeslocated at an offsite storage site).

Using Intermediate Devices for Creating Secondary Copies—SecondaryStorage Computing Devices

Creating secondary copies can be challenging when hundreds or thousandsof client computing devices 102 continually generate large volumes ofprimary data 112 to be protected. Also, there can be significantoverhead involved in the creation of secondary copies 116. Moreover,specialized programmed intelligence and/or hardware capability isgenerally needed for accessing and interacting with secondary storagedevices 108. Client computing devices 102 may interact directly with asecondary storage device 108 to create secondary copies 116, but in viewof the factors described above, this approach can negatively impact theability of client computing device 102 to serve/service application 110and produce primary data 112. Further, any given client computing device102 may not be optimized for interaction with certain secondary storagedevices 108.

Thus, system 100 may include one or more software and/or hardwarecomponents which generally act as intermediaries between clientcomputing devices 102 (that generate primary data 112) and secondarystorage devices 108 (that store secondary copies 116). In addition tooff-loading certain responsibilities from client computing devices 102,these intermediate components provide other benefits. For instance, asdiscussed further below with respect to FIG. 1D, distributing some ofthe work involved in creating secondary copies 116 can enhancescalability and improve system performance. For instance, usingspecialized secondary storage computing devices 106 and media agents 144for interfacing with secondary storage devices 108 and/or for performingcertain data processing operations can greatly improve the speed withwhich system 100 performs information management operations and can alsoimprove the capacity of the system to handle large numbers of suchoperations, while reducing the computational load on the productionenvironment of client computing devices 102. The intermediate componentscan include one or more secondary storage computing devices 106 as shownin FIG. 1A and/or one or more media agents 144. Media agents arediscussed further below (e.g., with respect to FIGS. 1C-1E). Thesespecial-purpose components of system 100 comprise specialized programmedintelligence and/or hardware capability for writing to, reading from,instructing, communicating with, or otherwise interacting with secondarystorage devices 108.

Secondary storage computing device(s) 106 can comprise any of thecomputing devices described above, without limitation. In some cases,secondary storage computing device(s) 106 also include specializedhardware componentry and/or software intelligence (e.g., specializedinterfaces) for interacting with certain secondary storage device(s) 108with which they may be specially associated. To create a secondary copy116 involving the copying of data from primary storage subsystem 117 tosecondary storage subsystem 118, client computing device 102 maycommunicate the primary data 112 to be copied (or a processed versionthereof generated by a data agent 142) to the designated secondarystorage computing device 106, via a communication pathway 114. Secondarystorage computing device 106 in turn may further process and convey thedata or a processed version thereof to secondary storage device 108. Oneor more secondary copies 116 may be created from existing secondarycopies 116, such as in the case of an auxiliary copy operation,described further below.

Example Primary Data and an Example Secondary Copy

FIG. 1B is a detailed view of some specific examples of primary datastored on primary storage device(s) 104 and secondary copy data storedon secondary storage device(s) 108, with other components of the systemremoved for the purposes of illustration. Stored on primary storagedevice(s) 104 are primary data 112 objects including word processingdocuments 119A-B, spreadsheets 120, presentation documents 122, videofiles 124, image files 126, email mailboxes 128 (and corresponding emailmessages 129A-C), HTML/XML or other types of markup language files 130,databases 132 and corresponding tables or other data structures133A-133C. Some or all primary data 112 objects are associated withcorresponding metadata (e.g., “Meta1-11”), which may include file systemmetadata and/or application-specific metadata. Stored on the secondarystorage device(s) 108 are secondary copy 116 data objects 134A-C whichmay include copies of or may otherwise represent corresponding primarydata 112.

Secondary copy data objects 134A-C can individually represent more thanone primary data object. For example, secondary copy data object 134Arepresents three separate primary data objects 133C, 122, and 129C(represented as 133C′, 122′, and 129C′, respectively, and accompanied bycorresponding metadata Meta11, Meta3, and Meta8, respectively).Moreover, as indicated by the prime mark (′), secondary storagecomputing devices 106 or other components in secondary storage subsystem118 may process the data received from primary storage subsystem 117 andstore a secondary copy including a transformed and/or supplementedrepresentation of a primary data object and/or metadata that isdifferent from the original format, e.g., in a compressed, encrypted,deduplicated, or other modified format. For instance, secondary storagecomputing devices 106 can generate new metadata or other informationbased on said processing, and store the newly generated informationalong with the secondary copies. Secondary copy data object 134Brepresents primary data objects 120, 1336, and 119A as 120′, 133B′, and119A′, respectively, accompanied by corresponding metadata Meta2,Meta10, and Meta1, respectively. Also, secondary copy data object 134Crepresents primary data objects 133A, 1196, and 129A as 133A′, 1196′,and 129A′, respectively, accompanied by corresponding metadata Meta9,Meta5, and Meta6, respectively.

Example Information Management System Architecture

System 100 can incorporate a variety of different hardware and softwarecomponents, which can in turn be organized with respect to one anotherin many different configurations, depending on the embodiment. There arecritical design choices involved in specifying the functionalresponsibilities of the components and the role of each component insystem 100. Such design choices can impact how system 100 performs andadapts to data growth and other changing circumstances. FIG. 1C shows asystem 100 designed according to these considerations and includes:storage manager 140, one or more data agents 142 executing on clientcomputing device(s) 102 and configured to process primary data 112, andone or more media agents 144 executing on one or more secondary storagecomputing devices 106 for performing tasks involving secondary storagedevices 108.

Storage Manager

Storage manager 140 is a centralized storage and/or information managerthat is configured to perform certain control functions and also tostore certain critical information about system 100—hence storagemanager 140 is said to manage system 100. As noted, the number ofcomponents in system 100 and the amount of data under management can belarge. Managing the components and data is therefore a significant task,which can grow unpredictably as the number of components and data scaleto meet the needs of the organization. For these and other reasons,according to certain embodiments, responsibility for controlling system100, or at least a significant portion of that responsibility, isallocated to storage manager 140. Storage manager 140 can be adaptedindependently according to changing circumstances, without having toreplace or re-design the remainder of the system. Moreover, a computingdevice for hosting and/or operating as storage manager 140 can beselected to best suit the functions and networking needs of storagemanager 140. These and other advantages are described in further detailbelow and with respect to FIG. 1D.

Storage manager 140 may be a software module or other application hostedby a suitable computing device. In some embodiments, storage manager 140is itself a computing device (comprising computer hardware processorsand computer memory) that performs the functions described herein.Storage manager 140 comprises or operates in conjunction with one ormore associated data structures such as a dedicated database (e.g.,management database 146), depending on the configuration. The storagemanager 140 generally initiates, performs, coordinates, and/or controlsstorage and other information management operations performed by system100, e.g., to protect and control primary data 112 and secondary copies116. In general, storage manager 140 is said to manage system 100, whichincludes communicating with, instructing, and controlling in somecircumstances components such as data agents 142 and media agents 144,etc. As shown by the dashed arrowed lines 114 in FIG. 1C, storagemanager 140 may communicate with, instruct, and/or control some or allelements of system 100, such as data agents 142 and media agents 144. Inthis manner, storage manager 140 manages the operation of varioushardware and software components in system 100. In certain embodiments,control information originates from storage manager 140 and status aswell as index reporting is transmitted to storage manager 140 by themanaged components, whereas payload data and metadata are generallycommunicated between data agents 142 and media agents 144 (or otherwisebetween client computing device(s) 102 and secondary storage computingdevice(s) 106), e.g., at the direction of and under the management ofstorage manager 140. Control information can generally includeparameters and instructions for carrying out information managementoperations, such as, without limitation, instructions to perform a taskassociated with an operation, timing information specifying when toinitiate a task, data path information specifying what components tocommunicate with or access in carrying out an operation, and the like.In other embodiments, some information management operations arecontrolled or initiated by other components of system 100 (e.g., bymedia agents 144 or data agents 142), instead of or in combination withstorage manager 140.

According to certain embodiments, storage manager 140 provides one ormore of the following functions:

-   -   communicating with data agents 142 and media agents 144,        including transmitting instructions, messages, and/or queries,        as well as receiving status reports, index information,        messages, and/or queries, and responding to same; initiating        execution of information management operations;    -   initiating restore and recovery operations;    -   managing secondary storage devices 108 and inventory/capacity of        the same;    -   allocating secondary storage devices 108 for secondary copy        operations;    -   reporting, searching, and/or classification of data in system        100;    -   monitoring completion of and status reporting related to        information management operations and jobs;    -   tracking movement of data within system 100;    -   tracking age information relating to secondary copies 116,        secondary storage devices 108, comparing the age information        against retention guidelines, and initiating data pruning when        appropriate;    -   tracking logical associations between components in system 100;    -   protecting metadata associated with system 100, e.g., in        management database 146;    -   implementing job management, schedule management, event        management, alert management, reporting, job history        maintenance, user security management, disaster recovery        management, and/or user interfacing for system administrators        and/or end users of system 100;    -   sending, searching, and/or viewing of log files; and        implementing operations management functionality.

Storage manager 140 may maintain an associated database 146 (or “storagemanager database 146” or “management database 146”) ofmanagement-related data and information management policies 148.Database 146 is stored in computer memory accessible by storage manager140. Database 146 may include a management index 150 (or “index 150”) orother data structure(s) that may store: logical associations betweencomponents of the system; user preferences and/or profiles (e.g.,preferences regarding encryption, compression, or deduplication ofprimary data or secondary copies; preferences regarding the scheduling,type, or other aspects of secondary copy or other operations; mappingsof particular information management users or user accounts to certaincomputing devices or other components, etc.; management tasks; mediacontainerization; other useful data; and/or any combination thereof. Forexample, storage manager 140 may use index 150 to track logicalassociations between media agents 144 and secondary storage devices 108and/or movement of data to/from secondary storage devices 108. Forinstance, index 150 may store data associating a client computing device102 with a particular media agent 144 and/or secondary storage device108, as specified in an information management policy 148.

Administrators and others may configure and initiate certain informationmanagement operations on an individual basis. But while this may beacceptable for some recovery operations or other infrequent tasks, it isoften not workable for implementing on-going organization-wide dataprotection and management. Thus, system 100 may utilize informationmanagement policies 148 for specifying and executing informationmanagement operations on an automated basis. Generally, an informationmanagement policy 148 can include a stored data structure or otherinformation source that specifies parameters (e.g., criteria and rules)associated with storage management or other information managementoperations. Storage manager 140 can process an information managementpolicy 148 and/or index 150 and, based on the results, identify aninformation management operation to perform, identify the appropriatecomponents in system 100 to be involved in the operation (e.g., clientcomputing devices 102 and corresponding data agents 142, secondarystorage computing devices 106 and corresponding media agents 144, etc.),establish connections to those components and/or between thosecomponents, and/or instruct and control those components to carry outthe operation. In this manner, system 100 can translate storedinformation into coordinated activity among the various computingdevices in system 100.

Management database 146 may maintain information management policies 148and associated data, although information management policies 148 can bestored in computer memory at any appropriate location outside managementdatabase 146. For instance, an information management policy 148 such asa storage policy may be stored as metadata in a media agent database 152or in a secondary storage device 108 (e.g., as an archive copy) for usein restore or other information management operations, depending on theembodiment. Information management policies 148 are described furtherbelow. According to certain embodiments, management database 146comprises a relational database (e.g., an SQL database) for trackingmetadata, such as metadata associated with secondary copy operations(e.g., what client computing devices 102 and corresponding subclientdata were protected and where the secondary copies are stored and whichmedia agent 144 performed the storage operation(s)). This and othermetadata may additionally be stored in other locations, such as atsecondary storage computing device 106 or on the secondary storagedevice 108, allowing data recovery without the use of storage manager140 in some cases. Thus, management database 146 may comprise dataneeded to kick off secondary copy operations (e.g., storage policies,schedule policies, etc.), status and reporting information aboutcompleted jobs (e.g., status and error reports on yesterday's backupjobs), and additional information sufficient to enable restore anddisaster recovery operations (e.g., media agent associations, locationindexing, content indexing, etc.).

Storage manager 140 may include a jobs agent 156, a user interface 158,and a management agent 154, all of which may be implemented asinterconnected software modules or application programs. These aredescribed further below. Jobs agent 156 in some embodiments initiates,controls, and/or monitors the status of some or all informationmanagement operations previously performed, currently being performed,or scheduled to be performed by system 100. A job is a logical groupingof information management operations such as daily storage operationsscheduled for a certain set of subclients (e.g., generating incrementalblock-level backup copies 116 at a certain time every day for databasefiles in a certain geographical location). Thus, jobs agent 156 mayaccess information management policies 148 (e.g., in management database146) to determine when, where, and how to initiate/control jobs insystem 100.

Storage Manager User Interfaces

User interface 158 may include information processing and displaysoftware, such as a graphical user interface (GUI), an applicationprogram interface (API), and/or other interactive interface(s) throughwhich users and system processes can retrieve information about thestatus of information management operations or issue instructions tostorage manager 140 and other components. Via user interface 158, usersmay issue instructions to the components in system 100 regardingperformance of secondary copy and recovery operations. For example, auser may modify a schedule concerning the number of pending secondarycopy operations. As another example, a user may employ the GUI to viewthe status of pending secondary copy jobs or to monitor the status ofcertain components in system 100 (e.g., the amount of capacity left in astorage device). Storage manager 140 may track information that permitsit to select, designate, or otherwise identify content indices,deduplication databases, or similar databases or resources or data setswithin its information management cell (or another cell) to be searchedin response to certain queries. Such queries may be entered by the userby interacting with user interface 158.

Various embodiments of information management system 100 may beconfigured and/or designed to generate user interface data usable forrendering the various interactive user interfaces described. The userinterface data may be used by system 100 and/or by another system,device, and/or software program (for example, a browser program), torender the interactive user interfaces. The interactive user interfacesmay be displayed on, for example, electronic displays (including, forexample, touch-enabled displays), consoles, etc., whetherdirect-connected to storage manager 140 or communicatively coupledremotely, e.g., via an internet connection. The present disclosuredescribes various embodiments of interactive and dynamic userinterfaces, some of which may be generated by user interface agent 158,and which are the result of significant technological development. Theuser interfaces described herein may provide improved human-computerinteractions, allowing for significant cognitive and ergonomicefficiencies and advantages over previous systems, including reducedmental workloads, improved decision-making, and the like. User interface158 may operate in a single integrated view or console (not shown). Theconsole may support a reporting capability for generating a variety ofreports, which may be tailored to a particular aspect of informationmanagement. User interfaces are not exclusive to storage manager 140 andin some embodiments a user may access information locally from acomputing device component of system 100. For example, some informationpertaining to installed data agents 142 and associated data streams maybe available from client computing device 102. Likewise, someinformation pertaining to media agents 144 and associated data streamsmay be available from secondary storage computing device 106.

Storage Manager Management Agent

Management agent 154 can provide storage manager 140 with the ability tocommunicate with other components within system 100 and/or with otherinformation management cells via network protocols and applicationprogramming interfaces (APIs) including, e.g., HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, REST,virtualization software APIs, cloud service provider APIs, and hostedservice provider APIs, without limitation. Management agent 154 alsoallows multiple information management cells to communicate with oneanother. For example, system 100 in some cases may be one informationmanagement cell in a network of multiple cells adjacent to one anotheror otherwise logically related, e.g., in a WAN or LAN. With thisarrangement, the cells may communicate with one another throughrespective management agents 154. Inter-cell communications andhierarchy is described in greater detail in e.g., U.S. Pat. No.7,343,453.

Information Management Cell

An “information management cell” (or “storage operation cell” or “cell”)may generally include a logical and/or physical grouping of acombination of hardware and software components associated withperforming information management operations on electronic data,typically one storage manager 140 and at least one data agent 142(executing on a client computing device 102) and at least one mediaagent 144 (executing on a secondary storage computing device 106). Forinstance, the components shown in FIG. 1C may together form aninformation management cell. Thus, in some configurations, a system 100may be referred to as an information management cell or a storageoperation cell. A given cell may be identified by the identity of itsstorage manager 140, which is generally responsible for managing thecell. Multiple cells may be organized hierarchically, so that cells mayinherit properties from hierarchically superior cells or be controlledby other cells in the hierarchy (automatically or otherwise).Alternatively, in some embodiments, cells may inherit or otherwise beassociated with information management policies, preferences,information management operational parameters, or other properties orcharacteristics according to their relative position in a hierarchy ofcells. Cells may also be organized hierarchically according to function,geography, architectural considerations, or other factors useful ordesirable in performing information management operations. For example,a first cell may represent a geographic segment of an enterprise, suchas a Chicago office, and a second cell may represent a differentgeographic segment, such as a New York City office. Other cells mayrepresent departments within a particular office, e.g., human resources,finance, engineering, etc. Where delineated by function, a first cellmay perform one or more first types of information management operations(e.g., one or more first types of secondary copies at a certainfrequency), and a second cell may perform one or more second types ofinformation management operations (e.g., one or more second types ofsecondary copies at a different frequency and under different retentionrules). In general, the hierarchical information is maintained by one ormore storage managers 140 that manage the respective cells (e.g., incorresponding management database(s) 146).

Data Agents

A variety of different applications 110 can operate on a given clientcomputing device 102, including operating systems, file systems,database applications, e-mail applications, and virtual machines, justto name a few. And, as part of the process of creating and restoringsecondary copies 116, the client computing device 102 may be tasked withprocessing and preparing the primary data 112 generated by these variousapplications 110. Moreover, the nature of the processing/preparation candiffer across application types, e.g., due to inherent structural,state, and formatting differences among applications 110 and/or theoperating system of client computing device 102. Each data agent 142 istherefore advantageously configured in some embodiments to assist in theperformance of information management operations based on the type ofdata that is being protected at a client-specific and/orapplication-specific level.

Data agent 142 is a component of information system 100 and is generallydirected by storage manager 140 to participate in creating or restoringsecondary copies 116. Data agent 142 may be a software program (e.g., inthe form of a set of executable binary files) that executes on the sameclient computing device 102 as the associated application 110 that dataagent 142 is configured to protect. Data agent 142 is generallyresponsible for managing, initiating, or otherwise assisting in theperformance of information management operations in reference to itsassociated application(s) 110 and corresponding primary data 112 whichis generated/accessed by the particular application(s) 110. Forinstance, data agent 142 may take part in copying, archiving, migrating,and/or replicating of certain primary data 112 stored in the primarystorage device(s) 104. Data agent 142 may receive control informationfrom storage manager 140, such as commands to transfer copies of dataobjects and/or metadata to one or more media agents 144. Data agent 142also may compress, deduplicate, and encrypt certain primary data 112, aswell as capture application-related metadata before transmitting theprocessed data to media agent 144. Data agent 142 also may receiveinstructions from storage manager 140 to restore (or assist inrestoring) a secondary copy 116 from secondary storage device 108 toprimary storage 104, such that the restored data may be properlyaccessed by application 110 in a suitable format as though it wereprimary data 112.

Each data agent 142 may be specialized for a particular application 110.For instance, different individual data agents 142 may be designed tohandle Microsoft Exchange data, Lotus Notes data, Microsoft Windows filesystem data, Microsoft Active Directory Objects data, SQL Server data,SharePoint data, Oracle database data, SAP database data, virtualmachines and/or associated data, and other types of data. A file systemdata agent, for example, may handle data files and/or other file systeminformation. If a client computing device 102 has two or more types ofdata 112, a specialized data agent 142 may be used for each data type.For example, to backup, migrate, and/or restore all of the data on aMicrosoft Exchange server, the client computing device 102 may use: (1)a Microsoft Exchange Mailbox data agent 142 to back up the Exchangemailboxes; (2) a Microsoft Exchange Database data agent 142 to back upthe Exchange databases; (3) a Microsoft Exchange Public Folder dataagent 142 to back up the Exchange Public Folders; and (4) a MicrosoftWindows File System data agent 142 to back up the file system of clientcomputing device 102. In this example, these specialized data agents 142are treated as four separate data agents 142 even though they operate onthe same client computing device 102. Other examples may include archivemanagement data agents such as a migration archiver or a compliancearchiver, Quick Recovery® agents, and continuous data replicationagents. Application-specific data agents 142 can provide improvedperformance as compared to generic agents. For instance, becauseapplication-specific data agents 142 may only handle data for a singlesoftware application, the design, operation, and performance of the dataagent 142 can be streamlined. The data agent 142 may therefore executefaster and consume less persistent storage and/or operating memory thandata agents designed to generically accommodate multiple differentsoftware applications 110. Each data agent 142 may be configured toaccess data and/or metadata stored in the primary storage device(s) 104associated with data agent 142 and its host client computing device 102,and process the data appropriately. For example, during a secondary copyoperation, data agent 142 may arrange or assemble the data and metadatainto one or more files having a certain format (e.g., a particularbackup or archive format) before transferring the file(s) to a mediaagent 144 or other component. The file(s) may include a list of files orother metadata. In some embodiments, a data agent 142 may be distributedbetween client computing device 102 and storage manager 140 (and anyother intermediate components) or may be deployed from a remote locationor its functions approximated by a remote process that performs some orall of the functions of data agent 142. In addition, a data agent 142may perform some functions provided by media agent 144. Otherembodiments may employ one or more generic data agents 142 that canhandle and process data from two or more different applications 110, orthat can handle and process multiple data types, instead of or inaddition to using specialized data agents 142. For example, one genericdata agent 142 may be used to back up, migrate and restore MicrosoftExchange Mailbox data and Microsoft Exchange Database data, whileanother generic data agent may handle Microsoft Exchange Public Folderdata and Microsoft Windows File System data.

Media Agents

As noted, off-loading certain responsibilities from client computingdevices 102 to intermediate components such as secondary storagecomputing device(s) 106 and corresponding media agent(s) 144 can providea number of benefits including improved performance of client computingdevice 102, faster and more reliable information management operations,and enhanced scalability. In one example which will be discussed furtherbelow, media agent 144 can act as a local cache of recently-copied dataand/or metadata stored to secondary storage device(s) 108, thusimproving restore capabilities and performance for the cached data.Media agent 144 is a component of system 100 and is generally directedby storage manager 140 in creating and restoring secondary copies 116.Whereas storage manager 140 generally manages system 100 as a whole,media agent 144 provides a portal to certain secondary storage devices108, such as by having specialized features for communicating with andaccessing certain associated secondary storage device 108. Media agent144 may be a software program (e.g., in the form of a set of executablebinary files) that executes on a secondary storage computing device 106.Media agent 144 generally manages, coordinates, and facilitates thetransmission of data between a data agent 142 (executing on clientcomputing device 102) and secondary storage device(s) 108 associatedwith media agent 144. For instance, other components in the system mayinteract with media agent 144 to gain access to data stored onassociated secondary storage device(s) 108, (e.g., to browse, read,write, modify, delete, or restore data). Moreover, media agents 144 cangenerate and store information relating to characteristics of the storeddata and/or metadata, or can generate and store other types ofinformation that generally provides insight into the contents of thesecondary storage devices 108—generally referred to as indexing of thestored secondary copies 116. Each media agent 144 may operate on adedicated secondary storage computing device 106, while in otherembodiments a plurality of media agents 144 may operate on the samesecondary storage computing device 106.

A media agent 144 may be associated with a particular secondary storagedevice 108 if that media agent 144 is capable of one or more of: routingand/or storing data to the particular secondary storage device 108;coordinating the routing and/or storing of data to the particularsecondary storage device 108; retrieving data from the particularsecondary storage device 108; coordinating the retrieval of data fromthe particular secondary storage device 108; and modifying and/ordeleting data retrieved from the particular secondary storage device108. Media agent 144 in certain embodiments is physically separate fromthe associated secondary storage device 108. For instance, a media agent144 may operate on a secondary storage computing device 106 in adistinct housing, package, and/or location from the associated secondarystorage device 108. In one example, a media agent 144 operates on afirst server computer and is in communication with a secondary storagedevice(s) 108 operating in a separate rack-mounted RAID-based system. Amedia agent 144 associated with a particular secondary storage device108 may instruct secondary storage device 108 to perform an informationmanagement task. For instance, a media agent 144 may instruct a tapelibrary to use a robotic arm or other retrieval means to load or eject acertain storage media, and to subsequently archive, migrate, or retrievedata to or from that media, e.g., for the purpose of restoring data to aclient computing device 102. As another example, a secondary storagedevice 108 may include an array of hard disk drives or solid statedrives organized in a RAID configuration, and media agent 144 mayforward a logical unit number (LUN) and other appropriate information tothe array, which uses the received information to execute the desiredsecondary copy operation. Media agent 144 may communicate with asecondary storage device 108 via a suitable communications link, such asa SCSI or Fibre Channel link.

Each media agent 144 may maintain an associated media agent database152. Media agent database 152 may be stored to a disk or other storagedevice (not shown) that is local to the secondary storage computingdevice 106 on which media agent 144 executes. In other cases, mediaagent database 152 is stored separately from the host secondary storagecomputing device 106. Media agent database 152 can include, among otherthings, a media agent index 153 (see, e.g., FIG. 1C). In some cases,media agent index 153 does not form a part of and is instead separatefrom media agent database 152.

Media agent index 153 (or “index 153”) may be a data structureassociated with the particular media agent 144 that includes informationabout the stored data associated with the particular media agent andwhich may be generated in the course of performing a secondary copyoperation or a restore. Index 153 provides a fast and efficientmechanism for locating/browsing secondary copies 116 or other datastored in secondary storage devices 108 without having to accesssecondary storage device 108 to retrieve the information from there. Forinstance, for each secondary copy 116, index 153 may include metadatasuch as a list of the data objects (e.g., files/subdirectories, databaseobjects, mailbox objects, etc.), a logical path to the secondary copy116 on the corresponding secondary storage device 108, locationinformation (e.g., offsets) indicating where the data objects are storedin the secondary storage device 108, when the data objects were createdor modified, etc. Thus, index 153 includes metadata associated with thesecondary copies 116 that is readily available for use from media agent144. In some embodiments, some or all of the information in index 153may instead or additionally be stored along with secondary copies 116 insecondary storage device 108. In some embodiments, a secondary storagedevice 108 can include sufficient information to enable a “bare metalrestore,” where the operating system and/or software applications of afailed client computing device 102 or another target may beautomatically restored without manually reinstalling individual softwarepackages (including operating systems).

Because index 153 may operate as a cache, it can also be referred to asan “index cache.” In such cases, information stored in index cache 153typically comprises data that reflects certain particulars aboutrelatively recent secondary copy operations. After some triggeringevent, such as after some time elapses or index cache 153 reaches aparticular size, certain portions of index cache 153 may be copied ormigrated to secondary storage device 108, e.g., on a least-recently-usedbasis. This information may be retrieved and uploaded back into indexcache 153 or otherwise restored to media agent 144 to facilitateretrieval of data from the secondary storage device(s) 108. In someembodiments, the cached information may include format orcontainerization information related to archives or other files storedon storage device(s) 108.

In some alternative embodiments media agent 144 generally acts as acoordinator or facilitator of secondary copy operations between clientcomputing devices 102 and secondary storage devices 108, but does notactually write the data to secondary storage device 108. For instance,storage manager 140 (or media agent 144) may instruct a client computingdevice 102 and secondary storage device 108 to communicate with oneanother directly. In such a case, client computing device 102 transmitsdata directly or via one or more intermediary components to secondarystorage device 108 according to the received instructions, and viceversa. Media agent 144 may still receive, process, and/or maintainmetadata related to the secondary copy operations, i.e., may continue tobuild and maintain index 153. In these embodiments, payload data canflow through media agent 144 for the purposes of populating index 153,but not for writing to secondary storage device 108. Media agent 144and/or other components such as storage manager 140 may in some casesincorporate additional functionality, such as data classification,content indexing, deduplication, encryption, compression, and the like.Further details regarding these and other functions are described below.

Distributed, Scalable Architecture

As described, certain functions of system 100 can be distributed amongstvarious physical and/or logical components. For instance, one or more ofstorage manager 140, data agents 142, and media agents 144 may operateon computing devices that are physically separate from one another. Thisarchitecture can provide a number of benefits. For instance, hardwareand software design choices for each distributed component can betargeted to suit its particular function. The secondary computingdevices 106 on which media agents 144 operate can be tailored forinteraction with associated secondary storage devices 108 and providefast index cache operation, among other specific tasks. Similarly,client computing device(s) 102 can be selected to effectively serviceapplications 110 in order to efficiently produce and store primary data112. Moreover, in some cases, one or more of the individual componentsof information management system 100 can be distributed to multipleseparate computing devices. As one example, for large file systems wherethe amount of data stored in management database 146 is relativelylarge, database 146 may be migrated to or may otherwise reside on aspecialized database server (e.g., an SQL server) separate from a serverthat implements the other functions of storage manager 140. Thisdistributed configuration can provide added protection because database146 can be protected with standard database utilities (e.g., SQL logshipping or database replication) independent from other functions ofstorage manager 140. Database 146 can be efficiently replicated to aremote site for use in the event of a disaster or other data loss at theprimary site. Or database 146 can be replicated to another computingdevice within the same site, such as to a higher performance machine inthe event that a storage manager host computing device can no longerservice the needs of a growing system 100.

The distributed architecture also provides scalability and efficientcomponent utilization. FIG. 1D shows an embodiment of informationmanagement system 100 including a plurality of client computing devices102 and associated data agents 142 as well as a plurality of secondarystorage computing devices 106 and associated media agents 144.Additional components can be added or subtracted based on the evolvingneeds of system 100. For instance, depending on where bottlenecks areidentified, administrators can add additional client computing devices102, secondary storage computing devices 106, and/or secondary storagedevices 108. Moreover, where multiple fungible components are available,load balancing can be implemented to dynamically address identifiedbottlenecks. As an example, storage manager 140 may dynamically selectwhich media agents 144 and/or secondary storage devices 108 to use forstorage operations based on a processing load analysis of media agents144 and/or secondary storage devices 108, respectively.

Where system 100 includes multiple media agents 144 (see, e.g., FIG.1D), a first media agent 144 may provide failover functionality for asecond failed media agent 144. In addition, media agents 144 can bedynamically selected to provide load balancing. Each client computingdevice 102 can communicate with, among other components, any of themedia agents 144, e.g., as directed by storage manager 140. And eachmedia agent 144 may communicate with, among other components, any ofsecondary storage devices 108, e.g., as directed by storage manager 140.Thus, operations can be routed to secondary storage devices 108 in adynamic and highly flexible manner, to provide load balancing, failover,etc. Further examples of scalable systems capable of dynamic storageoperations, load balancing, and failover are provided in U.S. Pat. No.7,246,207. While distributing functionality amongst multiple computingdevices can have certain advantages, in other contexts it can bebeneficial to consolidate functionality on the same computing device. Inalternative configurations, certain components may reside and execute onthe same computing device. As such, in other embodiments, one or more ofthe components shown in FIG. 1C may be implemented on the same computingdevice. In one configuration, a storage manager 140, one or more dataagents 142, and/or one or more media agents 144 are all implemented onthe same computing device. In other embodiments, one or more data agents142 and one or more media agents 144 are implemented on the samecomputing device, while storage manager 140 is implemented on a separatecomputing device, etc. without limitation.

Example Types of Information Management Operations, Including StorageOperations

In order to protect and leverage stored data, system 100 can beconfigured to perform a variety of information management operations,which may also be referred to in some cases as storage managementoperations or storage operations. These operations can generally include(i) data movement operations, (ii) processing and data manipulationoperations, and (iii) analysis, reporting, and management operations.

Data Movement Operations, Including Secondary Copy Operations

Data movement operations are generally storage operations that involvethe copying or migration of data between different locations in system100. For example, data movement operations can include operations inwhich stored data is copied, migrated, or otherwise transferred from oneor more first storage devices to one or more second storage devices,such as from primary storage device(s) 104 to secondary storagedevice(s) 108, from secondary storage device(s) 108 to differentsecondary storage device(s) 108, from secondary storage devices 108 toprimary storage devices 104, or from primary storage device(s) 104 todifferent primary storage device(s) 104, or in some cases within thesame primary storage device 104 such as within a storage array. Datamovement operations can include by way of example, backup operations,archive operations, information lifecycle management operations such ashierarchical storage management operations, replication operations(e.g., continuous data replication), snapshot operations, deduplicationor single-instancing operations, auxiliary copy operations,disaster-recovery copy operations, and the like. As will be discussed,some of these operations do not necessarily create distinct copies.Nonetheless, some or all of these operations are generally referred toas “secondary copy operations” for simplicity because they involvesecondary copies. Data movement also comprises restoring secondarycopies.

Backup Operations

A backup operation creates a copy of a version of primary data 112 at aparticular point in time (e.g., one or more files or other data units).Each subsequent backup copy 116 (which is a form of secondary copy 116)may be maintained independently of the first. A backup generallyinvolves maintaining a version of the copied primary data 112 as well asbackup copies 116. Further, a backup copy in some embodiments isgenerally stored in a form that is different from the native format,e.g., a backup format. This contrasts to the version in primary data 112which may instead be stored in a format native to the sourceapplication(s) 110. In various cases, backup copies can be stored in aformat in which the data is compressed, encrypted, deduplicated, and/orotherwise modified from the original native application format. Forexample, a backup copy may be stored in a compressed backup format thatfacilitates efficient long-term storage. Backup copies 116 can haverelatively long retention periods as compared to primary data 112, whichis generally highly changeable. Backup copies 116 may be stored on mediawith slower retrieval times than primary storage device 104. Some backupcopies may have shorter retention periods than some other types ofsecondary copies 116, such as archive copies (described below). Backupsmay be stored at an offsite location.

Backup operations can include full backups, differential backups,incremental backups, “synthetic full” backups, and/or creating a“reference copy.” A full backup (or “standard full backup”) in someembodiments is generally a complete image of the data to be protected.However, because full backup copies can consume a relatively largeamount of storage, it can be useful to use a full backup copy as abaseline and afterwards only store changes relative to the full backupcopy. A differential backup operation (or cumulative incremental backupoperation) tracks and stores changes that occurred since the last fullbackup. Differential backups can grow quickly in size, but can restorerelatively efficiently because a restore can be completed in some casesusing only the full backup copy and the latest differential copy. Anincremental backup operation generally tracks and stores changes sincethe most recent backup copy of any type, which can greatly reducestorage utilization. In some cases, however, restoring can be lengthycompared to full or differential backups because completing a restoreoperation may involve accessing a full backup in addition to multipleincremental backups. Synthetic full backups generally consolidate datawithout directly backing up data from the client computing device. Asynthetic full backup is created from the most recent full backup (i.e.,standard or synthetic) and subsequent incremental and/or differentialbackups. The resulting synthetic full backup is identical to what wouldhave been created had the last backup for the subclient been a standardfull backup. Unlike standard full, incremental, and differentialbackups, however, a synthetic full backup does not actually transferdata from primary storage to the backup media, because it operates as abackup consolidator. A synthetic full backup extracts the index data ofeach participating subclient. Using this index data and the previouslybacked up user data images, it builds new full backup images (e.g.,bitmaps, or complete backup copies), one for each subclient. The newbackup images consolidate the index and user data stored in the relatedincremental, differential, and previous full backups into a syntheticbackup file that fully represents the subclient (e.g., via pointers) butdoes not necessarily comprise all its constituent data.

Any of the above types of backup operations can be at the volume level,file level, or block level. Volume level backup operations generallyinvolve copying of a data volume (e.g., a logical disk or partition) asa whole. In a file-level backup, information management system 100generally tracks changes to individual files and includes copies offiles in the backup copy. For block-level backups, files are broken intoconstituent blocks, and changes are tracked at the block level. Uponrestore, system 100 reassembles the blocks into files in a transparentfashion. Far less data may actually be transferred and copied tosecondary storage devices 108 during a file-level copy than avolume-level copy. Likewise, a block-level copy may transfer less datathan a file-level copy, resulting in faster execution. However,restoring a relatively higher-granularity copy can result in longerrestore times. For instance, when restoring a block-level copy, theprocess of locating and retrieving constituent blocks can sometimes takelonger than restoring file-level backups.

A reference copy may comprise copy(ies) of selected objects from backedup data, typically to help organize data by keeping contextualinformation from multiple sources together, and/or help retain specificdata for a longer period of time, such as for legal hold needs. Areference copy generally maintains data integrity, and when the data isrestored, it may be viewed in the same format as the source data. Insome embodiments, a reference copy is based on a specialized client,individual subclient and associated information management policies(e.g., storage policy, retention policy, etc.) that are administeredwithin system 100.

Archive Operations

Because backup operations generally involve maintaining a version of thecopied primary data 112 and also maintaining backup copies in secondarystorage device(s) 108, they can consume significant storage capacity. Toreduce storage consumption, an archive operation according to certainembodiments creates an archive copy 116 by both copying and removingsource data. Or, seen another way, archive operations can involve movingsome or all of the source data to the archive destination. Thus, datasatisfying criteria for removal (e.g., data of a threshold age or size)may be removed from source storage. The source data may be primary data112 or a secondary copy 116, depending on the situation. As with backupcopies, archive copies can be stored in a format in which the data iscompressed, encrypted, deduplicated, and/or otherwise modified from theformat of the original application or source copy. In addition, archivecopies may be retained for relatively long periods of time (e.g., years)and, in some cases are never deleted. In certain embodiments, archivecopies may be made and kept for extended periods in order to meetcompliance regulations. Archiving can also serve the purpose of freeingup space in primary storage device(s) 104 and easing the demand oncomputational resources on client computing device 102. Similarly, whena secondary copy 116 is archived, the archive copy can therefore servethe purpose of freeing up space in the source secondary storagedevice(s) 108. Examples of data archiving operations are provided inU.S. Pat. No. 7,107,298.

Snapshot Operations

Snapshot operations can provide a relatively lightweight, efficientmechanism for protecting data. From an end-user viewpoint, a snapshotmay be thought of as an “instant” image of primary data 112 at a givenpoint in time, and may include state and/or status information relativeto an application 110 that creates/manages primary data 112. In oneembodiment, a snapshot may generally capture the directory structure ofan object in primary data 112 such as a file or volume or other data setat a particular moment in time and may also preserve file attributes andcontents. A snapshot in some cases is created relatively quickly, e.g.,substantially instantly, using a minimum amount of file space, but maystill function as a conventional file system backup.

A “hardware snapshot” (or “hardware-based snapshot”) operation occurswhere a target storage device (e.g., a primary storage device 104 or asecondary storage device 108) performs the snapshot operation in aself-contained fashion, substantially independently, using hardware,firmware and/or software operating on the storage device itself. Forinstance, the storage device may perform snapshot operations generallywithout intervention or oversight from any of the other components ofthe system 100, e.g., a storage array may generate an “array-created”hardware snapshot and may also manage its storage, integrity,versioning, etc. In this manner, hardware snapshots can off-load othercomponents of system 100 from snapshot processing. An array may receivea request from another component to take a snapshot and then proceed toexecute the “hardware snapshot” operations autonomously, preferablyreporting success to the requesting component.

A “software snapshot” (or “software-based snapshot”) operation, on theother hand, occurs where a component in system 100 (e.g., clientcomputing device 102, etc.) implements a software layer that manages thesnapshot operation via interaction with the target storage device. Forinstance, the component executing the snapshot management software layermay derive a set of pointers and/or data that represents the snapshot.The snapshot management software layer may then transmit the same to thetarget storage device, along with appropriate instructions for writingthe snapshot. One example of a software snapshot product is MicrosoftVolume Snapshot Service (VSS), which is part of the Microsoft Windowsoperating system.

Some types of snapshots do not actually create another physical copy ofall the data as it existed at the particular point in time, but maysimply create pointers that map files and directories to specific memorylocations (e.g., to specific disk blocks) where the data resides as itexisted at the particular point in time. For example, a snapshot copymay include a set of pointers derived from the file system or from anapplication. In some other cases, the snapshot may be created at theblock-level, such that creation of the snapshot occurs without awarenessof the file system. Each pointer points to a respective stored datablock, so that collectively, the set of pointers reflect the storagelocation and state of the data object (e.g., file(s) or volume(s) ordata set(s)) at the point in time when the snapshot copy was created.

An initial snapshot may use only a small amount of disk space needed torecord a mapping or other data structure representing or otherwisetracking the blocks that correspond to the current state of the filesystem. Additional disk space is usually required only when files anddirectories change later on. Furthermore, when files change, typicallyonly the pointers which map to blocks are copied, not the blocksthemselves. For example for “copy-on-write” snapshots, when a blockchanges in primary storage, the block is copied to secondary storage orcached in primary storage before the block is overwritten in primarystorage, and the pointer to that block is changed to reflect the newlocation of that block. The snapshot mapping of file system data mayalso be updated to reflect the changed block(s) at that particular pointin time. In some other cases, a snapshot includes a full physical copyof all or substantially all of the data represented by the snapshot.Further examples of snapshot operations are provided in U.S. Pat. No.7,529,782. A snapshot copy in many cases can be made quickly and withoutsignificantly impacting primary computing resources because largeamounts of data need not be copied or moved. In some embodiments, asnapshot may exist as a virtual file system, parallel to the actual filesystem. Users in some cases gain read-only access to the record of filesand directories of the snapshot. By electing to restore primary data 112from a snapshot taken at a given point in time, users may also returnthe current file system to the state of the file system that existedwhen the snapshot was taken.

Replication Operations

Replication is another type of secondary copy operation. Some types ofsecondary copies 116 periodically capture images of primary data 112 atparticular points in time (e.g., backups, archives, and snapshots).However, it can also be useful for recovery purposes to protect primarydata 112 in a more continuous fashion, by replicating primary data 112substantially as changes occur. In some cases a replication copy can bea mirror copy, for instance, where changes made to primary data 112 aremirrored or substantially immediately copied to another location (e.g.,to secondary storage device(s) 108). By copying each write operation tothe replication copy, two storage systems are kept synchronized orsubstantially synchronized so that they are virtually identical atapproximately the same time. Where entire disk volumes are mirrored,however, mirroring can require significant amount of storage space andutilizes a large amount of processing resources. According to someembodiments, secondary copy operations are performed on replicated datathat represents a recoverable state, or “known good state” of aparticular application running on the source system. For instance, incertain embodiments, known good replication copies may be viewed ascopies of primary data 112. This feature allows the system to directlyaccess, copy, restore, back up, or otherwise manipulate the replicationcopies as if they were the “live” primary data 112. This can reduceaccess time, storage utilization, and impact on source applications 110,among other benefits. Based on known good state information, system 100can replicate sections of application data that represent a recoverablestate rather than rote copying of blocks of data. Examples ofreplication operations (e.g., continuous data replication) are providedin U.S. Pat. No. 7,617,262.

Deduplication/Single-Instancing Operations

Deduplication or single-instance storage is useful to reduce the amountof non-primary data. For instance, some or all of the above-describedsecondary copy operations can involve deduplication in some fashion. Newdata is read, broken down into data portions of a selected granularity(e.g., sub-file level blocks, files, etc.), compared with correspondingportions that are already in secondary storage, and only new/changedportions are stored. Portions that already exist are represented aspointers to the already-stored data. Thus, a deduplicated secondary copy116 may comprise actual data portions copied from primary data 112 andmay further comprise pointers to already-stored data, which is generallymore storage-efficient than a full copy. In order to streamline thecomparison process, system 100 may calculate and/or store signatures(e.g., hashes or cryptographically unique IDs) corresponding to theindividual source data portions and compare the signatures toalready-stored data signatures, instead of comparing entire dataportions. In some cases, only a single instance of each data portion isstored, and deduplication operations may therefore be referred tointerchangeably as “single-instancing” operations. Depending on theimplementation, however, deduplication operations can store more thanone instance of certain data portions, yet still significantly reducestored-data redundancy. Depending on the embodiment, deduplicationportions such as data blocks can be of fixed or variable length. Usingvariable length blocks can enhance deduplication by responding tochanges in the data stream, but can involve more complex processing. Insome cases, system 100 utilizes a technique for dynamically aligningdeduplication blocks based on changing content in the data stream, asdescribed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,364,652.

System 100 can deduplicate in a variety of manners at a variety oflocations. For instance, in some embodiments, system 100 implements“target-side” deduplication by deduplicating data at the media agent 144after being received from data agent 142. In some such cases, mediaagents 144 are generally configured to manage the deduplication process.For instance, one or more of the media agents 144 maintain acorresponding deduplication database that stores deduplicationinformation (e.g., data block signatures). Examples of such aconfiguration are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 9,020,900. Instead of or incombination with “target-side” deduplication, “source-side” (or“client-side”) deduplication can also be performed, e.g., to reduce theamount of data to be transmitted by data agent 142 to media agent 144.Storage manager 140 may communicate with other components within system100 via network protocols and cloud service provider APIs to facilitatecloud-based deduplication/single instancing, as exemplified in U.S. Pat.No. 8,954,446. Some other deduplication/single instancing techniques aredescribed in U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2006/0224846 and in U.S. Pat. No.9,098,495.

Information Lifecycle Management and Hierarchical Storage Management

In some embodiments, files and other data over their lifetime move frommore expensive quick-access storage to less expensive slower-accessstorage. Operations associated with moving data through various tiers ofstorage are sometimes referred to as information lifecycle management(ILM) operations.

One type of ILM operation is a hierarchical storage management (HSM)operation, which generally automatically moves data between classes ofstorage devices, such as from high-cost to low-cost storage devices. Forinstance, an HSM operation may involve movement of data from primarystorage devices 104 to secondary storage devices 108, or between tiersof secondary storage devices 108. With each tier, the storage devicesmay be progressively cheaper, have relatively slower access/restoretimes, etc. For example, movement of data between tiers may occur asdata becomes less important over time. In some embodiments, an HSMoperation is similar to archiving in that creating an HSM copy may(though not always) involve deleting some of the source data, e.g.,according to one or more criteria related to the source data. Forexample, an HSM copy may include primary data 112 or a secondary copy116 that exceeds a given size threshold or a given age threshold. Often,and unlike some types of archive copies, HSM data that is removed oraged from the source is replaced by a logical reference pointer or stub.The reference pointer or stub can be stored in the primary storagedevice 104 or other source storage device, such as a secondary storagedevice 108 to replace the deleted source data and to point to orotherwise indicate the new location in (another) secondary storagedevice 108.

For example, files are generally moved between higher and lower coststorage depending on how often the files are accessed. When a userrequests access to HSM data that has been removed or migrated, system100 uses the stub to locate the data and can make recovery of the dataappear transparent, even though the HSM data may be stored at a locationdifferent from other source data. In this manner, the data appears tothe user (e.g., in file system browsing windows and the like) as if itstill resides in the source location (e.g., in a primary storage device104). The stub may include metadata associated with the correspondingdata, so that a file system and/or application can provide someinformation about the data object and/or a limited-functionality version(e.g., a preview) of the data object. An HSM copy may be stored in aformat other than the native application format (e.g., compressed,encrypted, deduplicated, and/or otherwise modified). In some cases,copies which involve the removal of data from source storage and themaintenance of stub or other logical reference information on sourcestorage may be referred to generally as “on-line archive copies.” On theother hand, copies which involve the removal of data from source storagewithout the maintenance of stub or other logical reference informationon source storage may be referred to as “off-line archive copies.”Examples of HSM and ILM techniques are provided in U.S. Pat. No.7,343,453.

Auxiliary Copy Operations

An auxiliary copy generally comprises a copy of an existing secondarycopy 116. For instance, an initial secondary copy 116 may be derivedfrom primary data 112 or from data residing in secondary storagesubsystem 118, whereas an auxiliary copy is generated from the initialsecondary copy 116. Auxiliary copies provide additional standby copiesof data and may reside on different secondary storage devices 108 thanthe initial secondary copies 116. Thus, auxiliary copies can be used forrecovery purposes if initial secondary copies 116 become unavailable.Example auxiliary copy techniques are described in further detail inU.S. Pat. No. 8,230,195.

Disaster-Recovery Copy Operations

System 100 may also make and retain disaster recovery copies, often assecondary, high-availability disk copies. System 100 may createsecondary copies and store them at disaster recovery locations usingauxiliary copy or replication operations, such as continuous datareplication technologies. Depending on the particular data protectiongoals, disaster recovery locations can be remote from the clientcomputing devices 102 and primary storage devices 104, remote from someor all of the secondary storage devices 108, or both.

Data Manipulation, Including Encryption and Compression

Data manipulation and processing may include encryption and compressionas well as integrity marking and checking, formatting for transmission,formatting for storage, etc. Data may be manipulated “client-side” bydata agent 142 as well as “target-side” by media agent 144 in the courseof creating secondary copy 116, or conversely in the course of restoringdata from secondary to primary.

Encryption Operations

System 100 in some cases is configured to process data (e.g., files orother data objects, primary data 112, secondary copies 116, etc.),according to an appropriate encryption algorithm (e.g., Blowfish,Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), Triple Data Encryption Standard(3-DES), etc.) to limit access and provide data security. System 100 insome cases encrypts the data at the client level, such that clientcomputing devices 102 (e.g., data agents 142) encrypt the data prior totransferring it to other components, e.g., before sending the data tomedia agents 144 during a secondary copy operation. In such cases,client computing device 102 may maintain or have access to an encryptionkey or passphrase for decrypting the data upon restore. Encryption canalso occur when media agent 144 creates auxiliary copies or archivecopies. Encryption may be applied in creating a secondary copy 116 of apreviously unencrypted secondary copy 116, without limitation. Infurther embodiments, secondary storage devices 108 can implementbuilt-in, high performance hardware-based encryption.

Compression Operations

Similar to encryption, system 100 may also or alternatively compressdata in the course of generating a secondary copy 116. Compressionencodes information such that fewer bits are needed to represent theinformation as compared to the original representation. Compressiontechniques are well known in the art. Compression operations may applyone or more data compression algorithms. Compression may be applied increating a secondary copy 116 of a previously uncompressed secondarycopy, e.g., when making archive copies or disaster recovery copies. Theuse of compression may result in metadata that specifies the nature ofthe compression, so that data may be uncompressed on restore ifappropriate.

Data Analysis, Reporting, and Management Operations

Data analysis, reporting, and management operations can differ from datamovement operations in that they do not necessarily involve copying,migration or other transfer of data between different locations in thesystem. For instance, data analysis operations may involve processing(e.g., offline processing) or modification of already stored primarydata 112 and/or secondary copies 116. However, in some embodiments dataanalysis operations are performed in conjunction with data movementoperations. Some data analysis operations include content indexingoperations and classification operations which can be useful inleveraging data under management to enhance search and other features.

Classification Operations/Content Indexing

In some embodiments, information management system 100 analyzes andindexes characteristics, content, and metadata associated with primarydata 112 (“online content indexing”) and/or secondary copies 116(“off-line content indexing”). Content indexing can identify files orother data objects based on content (e.g., user-defined keywords orphrases, other keywords/phrases that are not defined by a user, etc.),and/or metadata (e.g., email metadata such as “to,” “from,” “cc,” “bcc,”attachment name, received time, etc.). Content indexes may be searchedand search results may be restored. System 100 generally organizes andcatalogues the results into a content index, which may be stored withinmedia agent database 152, for example. The content index can alsoinclude the storage locations of or pointer references to indexed datain primary data 112 and/or secondary copies 116. Results may also bestored elsewhere in system 100 (e.g., in primary storage device 104 orin secondary storage device 108). Such content index data providesstorage manager 140 or other components with an efficient mechanism forlocating primary data 112 and/or secondary copies 116 of data objectsthat match particular criteria, thus greatly increasing the search speedcapability of system 100. For instance, search criteria can be specifiedby a user through user interface 158 of storage manager 140. Moreover,when system 100 analyzes data and/or metadata in secondary copies 116 tocreate an “off-line content index,” this operation has no significantimpact on the performance of client computing devices 102 and thus doesnot take a toll on the production environment. Examples of contentindexing techniques are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 8,170,995.

One or more components, such as a content index engine, can beconfigured to scan data and/or associated metadata for classificationpurposes to populate a database (or other data structure) ofinformation, which can be referred to as a “data classificationdatabase” or a “metabase.” Depending on the embodiment, the dataclassification database(s) can be organized in a variety of differentways, including centralization, logical sub-divisions, and/or physicalsub-divisions. For instance, one or more data classification databasesmay be associated with different subsystems or tiers within system 100.As an example, there may be a first metabase associated with primarystorage subsystem 117 and a second metabase associated with secondarystorage subsystem 118. In other cases, metabase(s) may be associatedwith individual components, e.g., client computing devices 102 and/ormedia agents 144. In some embodiments, a data classification databasemay reside as one or more data structures within management database146, may be otherwise associated with storage manager 140, and/or mayreside as a separate component. In some cases, metabase(s) may beincluded in separate database(s) and/or on separate storage device(s)from primary data 112 and/or secondary copies 116, such that operationsrelated to the metabase(s) do not significantly impact performance onother components of system 100. In other cases, metabase(s) may bestored along with primary data 112 and/or secondary copies 116. Files orother data objects can be associated with identifiers (e.g., tagentries, etc.) to facilitate searches of stored data objects. Among anumber of other benefits, the metabase can also allow efficient,automatic identification of files or other data objects to associatewith secondary copy or other information management operations. Forinstance, a metabase can dramatically improve the speed with whichsystem 100 can search through and identify data as compared to otherapproaches that involve scanning an entire file system. Examples ofmetabases and data classification operations are provided in U.S. Pat.Nos. 7,734,669 and 7,747,579.

Management and Reporting Operations

Certain embodiments leverage the integrated ubiquitous nature of system100 to provide useful system-wide management and reporting. Operationsmanagement can generally include monitoring and managing the health andperformance of system 100 by, without limitation, performing errortracking, generating granular storage/performance metrics (e.g., jobsuccess/failure information, deduplication efficiency, etc.), generatingstorage modeling and costing information, and the like. As an example,storage manager 140 or another component in system 100 may analyzetraffic patterns and suggest and/or automatically route data to minimizecongestion. In some embodiments, the system can generate predictionsrelating to storage operations or storage operation information. Suchpredictions, which may be based on a trending analysis, may predictvarious network operations or resource usage, such as network trafficlevels, storage media use, use of bandwidth of communication links, useof media agent components, etc. Further examples of traffic analysis,trend analysis, prediction generation, and the like are described inU.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453.

In some configurations having a hierarchy of storage operation cells, amaster storage manager 140 may track the status of subordinate cells,such as the status of jobs, system components, system resources, andother items, by communicating with storage managers 140 (or othercomponents) in the respective storage operation cells. Moreover, themaster storage manager 140 may also track status by receiving periodicstatus updates from the storage managers 140 (or other components) inthe respective cells regarding jobs, system components, systemresources, and other items. In some embodiments, a master storagemanager 140 may store status information and other information regardingits associated storage operation cells and other system information inits management database 146 and/or index 150 (or in another location).The master storage manager 140 or other component may also determinewhether certain storage-related or other criteria are satisfied, and mayperform an action or trigger event (e.g., data migration) in response tothe criteria being satisfied, such as where a storage threshold is metfor a particular volume, or where inadequate protection exists forcertain data. For instance, data from one or more storage operationcells is used to mitigate recognized risks dynamically andautomatically, and/or to advise users of risks or suggest actions tomitigate these risks. For example, an information management policy mayspecify certain requirements (e.g., that a storage device shouldmaintain a certain amount of free space, that secondary copies shouldoccur at a particular interval, that data should be aged and migrated toother storage after a particular period, that data on a secondary volumeshould always have a certain level of availability and be restorablewithin a given time period, that data on a secondary volume may bemirrored or otherwise migrated to a specified number of other volumes,etc.). If a risk condition or other criterion is triggered, the systemmay notify the user of these conditions and may suggest (orautomatically implement) a mitigation action to address the risk. Forexample, the system may indicate that data from a primary copy 112should be migrated to a secondary storage device 108 to free up space onprimary storage device 104. Examples of the use of risk factors andother triggering criteria are described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453.

In some embodiments, system 100 may also determine whether a metric orother indication satisfies particular storage criteria sufficient toperform an action. For example, a storage policy or other definitionmight indicate that a storage manager 140 should initiate a particularaction if a storage metric or other indication drops below or otherwisefails to satisfy specified criteria such as a threshold of dataprotection. In some embodiments, risk factors may be quantified intocertain measurable service or risk levels. For example, certainapplications and associated data may be considered to be more importantrelative to other data and services. Financial compliance data, forexample, may be of greater importance than marketing materials, etc.Network administrators may assign priority values or “weights” tocertain data and/or applications corresponding to the relativeimportance. The level of compliance of secondary copy operationsspecified for these applications may also be assigned a certain value.Thus, the health, impact, and overall importance of a service may bedetermined, such as by measuring the compliance value and calculatingthe product of the priority value and the compliance value to determinethe “service level” and comparing it to certain operational thresholdsto determine whether it is acceptable. Further examples of the servicelevel determination are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453.

System 100 may additionally calculate data costing and data availabilityassociated with information management operation cells. For instance,data received from a cell may be used in conjunction withhardware-related information and other information about system elementsto determine the cost of storage and/or the availability of particulardata. Example information generated could include how fast a particulardepartment is using up available storage space, how long data would taketo recover over a particular pathway from a particular secondary storagedevice, costs over time, etc. Moreover, in some embodiments, suchinformation may be used to determine or predict the overall costassociated with the storage of certain information. The cost associatedwith hosting a certain application may be based, at least in part, onthe type of media on which the data resides, for example. Storagedevices may be assigned to a particular cost categories, for example.Further examples of costing techniques are described in U.S. Pat. No.7,343,453.

Any of the above types of information (e.g., information related totrending, predictions, job, cell or component status, risk, servicelevel, costing, etc.) can generally be provided to users via userinterface 158 in a single integrated view or console (not shown). Reporttypes may include: scheduling, event management, media management anddata aging. Available reports may also include backup history, dataaging history, auxiliary copy history, job history, library and drive,media in library, restore history, and storage policy, etc., withoutlimitation. Such reports may be specified and created at a certain pointin time as a system analysis, forecasting, or provisioning tool.Integrated reports may also be generated that illustrate storage andperformance metrics, risks and storage costing information. Moreover,users may create their own reports based on specific needs. Userinterface 158 can include an option to graphically depict the variouscomponents in the system using appropriate icons. As one example, userinterface 158 may provide a graphical depiction of primary storagedevices 104, secondary storage devices 108, data agents 142 and/or mediaagents 144, and their relationship to one another in system 100.

In general, the operations management functionality of system 100 canfacilitate planning and decision-making. For example, in someembodiments, a user may view the status of some or all jobs as well asthe status of each component of information management system 100. Usersmay then plan and make decisions based on this data. For instance, auser may view high-level information regarding secondary copy operationsfor system 100, such as job status, component status, resource status(e.g., communication pathways, etc.), and other information. The usermay also drill down or use other means to obtain more detailedinformation regarding a particular component, job, or the like. Furtherexamples are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453. System 100 can also beconfigured to perform system-wide e-discovery operations in someembodiments. In general, e-discovery operations provide a unifiedcollection and search capability for data in the system, such as datastored in secondary storage devices 108 (e.g., backups, archives, orother secondary copies 116). For example, system 100 may construct andmaintain a virtual repository for data stored in system 100 that isintegrated across source applications 110, different storage devicetypes, etc. According to some embodiments, e-discovery utilizes othertechniques described herein, such as data classification and/or contentindexing.

Information Management Policies

An information management policy 148 can include a data structure orother information source that specifies a set of parameters (e.g.,criteria and rules) associated with secondary copy and/or otherinformation management operations.

One type of information management policy 148 is a “storage policy.”According to certain embodiments, a storage policy generally comprises adata structure or other information source that defines (or includesinformation sufficient to determine) a set of preferences or othercriteria for performing information management operations. Storagepolicies can include one or more of the following: (1) what data will beassociated with the storage policy, e.g., subclient; (2) a destinationto which the data will be stored; (3) datapath information specifyinghow the data will be communicated to the destination; (4) the type ofsecondary copy operation to be performed; and (5) retention informationspecifying how long the data will be retained at the destination (see,e.g., FIG. 1E). Data associated with a storage policy can be logicallyorganized into subclients, which may represent primary data 112 and/orsecondary copies 116. A subclient may represent static or dynamicassociations of portions of a data volume. Subclients may representmutually exclusive portions. Thus, in certain embodiments, a portion ofdata may be given a label and the association is stored as a staticentity in an index, database or other storage location. Subclients mayalso be used as an effective administrative scheme of organizing dataaccording to data type, department within the enterprise, storagepreferences, or the like. Depending on the configuration, subclients cancorrespond to files, folders, virtual machines, databases, etc. In oneexample scenario, an administrator may find it preferable to separatee-mail data from financial data using two different subclients.

A storage policy can define where data is stored by specifying a targetor destination storage device (or group of storage devices). Forinstance, where the secondary storage device 108 includes a group ofdisk libraries, the storage policy may specify a particular disk libraryfor storing the subclients associated with the policy. As anotherexample, where the secondary storage devices 108 include one or moretape libraries, the storage policy may specify a particular tape libraryfor storing the subclients associated with the storage policy, and mayalso specify a drive pool and a tape pool defining a group of tapedrives and a group of tapes, respectively, for use in storing thesubclient data. While information in the storage policy can bestatically assigned in some cases, some or all of the information in thestorage policy can also be dynamically determined based on criteria setforth in the storage policy. For instance, based on such criteria, aparticular destination storage device(s) or other parameter of thestorage policy may be determined based on characteristics associatedwith the data involved in a particular secondary copy operation, deviceavailability (e.g., availability of a secondary storage device 108 or amedia agent 144), network status and conditions (e.g., identifiedbottlenecks), user credentials, and the like.

Datapath information can also be included in the storage policy. Forinstance, the storage policy may specify network pathways and componentsto utilize when moving the data to the destination storage device(s). Insome embodiments, the storage policy specifies one or more media agents144 for conveying data associated with the storage policy between thesource and destination. A storage policy can also specify the type(s) ofassociated operations, such as backup, archive, snapshot, auxiliarycopy, or the like. Furthermore, retention parameters can specify howlong the resulting secondary copies 116 will be kept (e.g., a number ofdays, months, years, etc.), perhaps depending on organizational needsand/or compliance criteria.

When adding a new client computing device 102, administrators canmanually configure information management policies 148 and/or othersettings, e.g., via user interface 158. However, this can be an involvedprocess resulting in delays, and it may be desirable to begin dataprotection operations quickly, without awaiting human intervention.Thus, in some embodiments, system 100 automatically applies a defaultconfiguration to client computing device 102. As one example, when oneor more data agent(s) 142 are installed on a client computing device102, the installation script may register the client computing device102 with storage manager 140, which in turn applies the defaultconfiguration to the new client computing device 102. In this manner,data protection operations can begin substantially immediately. Thedefault configuration can include a default storage policy, for example,and can specify any appropriate information sufficient to begin dataprotection operations. This can include a type of data protectionoperation, scheduling information, a target secondary storage device108, data path information (e.g., a particular media agent 144), and thelike.

Another type of information management policy 148 is a “schedulingpolicy,” which specifies when and how often to perform operations.Scheduling parameters may specify with what frequency (e.g., hourly,weekly, daily, event-based, etc.) or under what triggering conditionssecondary copy or other information management operations are to takeplace. Scheduling policies in some cases are associated with particularcomponents, such as a subclient, client computing device 102, and thelike.

Another type of information management policy 148 is an “audit policy”(or “security policy”), which comprises preferences, rules and/orcriteria that protect sensitive data in system 100. For example, anaudit policy may define “sensitive objects” which are files or dataobjects that contain particular keywords (e.g., “confidential,” or“privileged”) and/or are associated with particular keywords (e.g., inmetadata) or particular flags (e.g., in metadata identifying a documentor email as personal, confidential, etc.). An audit policy may furtherspecify rules for handling sensitive objects. As an example, an auditpolicy may require that a reviewer approve the transfer of any sensitiveobjects to a cloud storage site, and that if approval is denied for aparticular sensitive object, the sensitive object should be transferredto a local primary storage device 104 instead. To facilitate thisapproval, the audit policy may further specify how a secondary storagecomputing device 106 or other system component should notify a reviewerthat a sensitive object is slated for transfer.

Another type of information management policy 148 is a “provisioningpolicy,” which can include preferences, priorities, rules, and/orcriteria that specify how client computing devices 102 (or groupsthereof) may utilize system resources, such as available storage oncloud storage and/or network bandwidth. A provisioning policy specifies,for example, data quotas for particular client computing devices 102(e.g., a number of gigabytes that can be stored monthly, quarterly orannually). Storage manager 140 or other components may enforce theprovisioning policy. For instance, media agents 144 may enforce thepolicy when transferring data to secondary storage devices 108. If aclient computing device 102 exceeds a quota, a budget for the clientcomputing device 102 (or associated department) may be adjustedaccordingly or an alert may trigger.

While the above types of information management policies 148 aredescribed as separate policies, one or more of these can be generallycombined into a single information management policy 148. For instance,a storage policy may also include or otherwise be associated with one ormore scheduling, audit, or provisioning policies or operationalparameters thereof. Moreover, while storage policies are typicallyassociated with moving and storing data, other policies may beassociated with other types of information management operations. Thefollowing is a non-exhaustive list of items that information managementpolicies 148 may specify:

-   -   schedules or other timing information, e.g., specifying when        and/or how often to perform information management operations;    -   the type of secondary copy 116 and/or copy format (e.g.,        snapshot, backup, archive, HSM, etc.);    -   a location or a class or quality of storage for storing        secondary copies 116 (e.g., one or more particular secondary        storage devices 108);    -   preferences regarding whether and how to encrypt, compress,        deduplicate, or otherwise modify or transform secondary copies        116;    -   which system components and/or network pathways (e.g., preferred        media agents 144) should be used to perform secondary storage        operations;    -   resource allocation among different computing devices or other        system components used in performing information management        operations (e.g., bandwidth allocation, available storage        capacity, etc.);    -   whether and how to synchronize or otherwise distribute files or        other data objects across multiple computing devices or hosted        services; and    -   retention information specifying the length of time primary data        112 and/or secondary copies 116 should be retained, e.g., in a        particular class or tier of storage devices, or within the        system 100.

Information management policies 148 can additionally specify or dependon historical or current criteria that may be used to determine whichrules to apply to a particular data object, system component, orinformation management operation, such as:

-   -   frequency with which primary data 112 or a secondary copy 116 of        a data object or metadata has been or is predicted to be used,        accessed, or modified;    -   time-related factors (e.g., aging information such as time since        the creation or modification of a data object);    -   deduplication information (e.g., hashes, data blocks,        deduplication block size, deduplication efficiency or other        metrics);    -   an estimated or historic usage or cost associated with different        components (e.g., with secondary storage devices 108);    -   the identity of users, applications 110, client computing        devices 102 and/or other computing devices that created,        accessed, modified, or otherwise utilized primary data 112 or        secondary copies 116;    -   a relative sensitivity (e.g., confidentiality, importance) of a        data object, e.g., as determined by its content and/or metadata;    -   the current or historical storage capacity of various storage        devices;    -   the current or historical network capacity of network pathways        connecting various components within the storage operation cell;    -   access control lists or other security information; and    -   the content of a particular data object (e.g., its textual        content) or of metadata associated with the data object.

Example Storage Policy and Secondary Copy Operations

FIG. 1E includes a data flow diagram depicting performance of secondarycopy operations by an embodiment of information management system 100,according to an example storage policy 148A. System 100 includes astorage manager 140, a client computing device 102 having a file systemdata agent 142A and an email data agent 142B operating thereon, aprimary storage device 104, two media agents 144A, 144B, and twosecondary storage devices 108: a disk library 108A and a tape library108B. As shown, primary storage device 104 includes primary data 112A,which is associated with a logical grouping of data associated with afile system (“file system subclient”), and primary data 112B, which is alogical grouping of data associated with email (“email subclient”). Thetechniques described with respect to FIG. 1E can be utilized inconjunction with data that is otherwise organized as well. As indicatedby the dashed box, the second media agent 144B and tape library 108B are“off-site,” and may be remotely located from the other components insystem 100 (e.g., in a different city, office building, etc.). Indeed,“off-site” may refer to a magnetic tape located in remote storage, whichmust be manually retrieved and loaded into a tape drive to be read. Inthis manner, information stored on the tape library 108B may provideprotection in the event of a disaster or other failure at the mainsite(s) where data is stored.

The file system subclient 112A in certain embodiments generallycomprises information generated by the file system and/or operatingsystem of client computing device 102, and can include, for example,file system data (e.g., regular files, file tables, mount points, etc.),operating system data (e.g., registries, event logs, etc.), and thelike. The e-mail subclient 112B can include data generated by an e-mailapplication operating on client computing device 102, e.g., mailboxinformation, folder information, emails, attachments, associateddatabase information, and the like. As described above, the subclientscan be logical containers, and the data included in the correspondingprimary data 112A and 112B may or may not be stored contiguously. Theexample storage policy 148A includes backup copy preferences or rule set160, disaster recovery copy preferences or rule set 162, and compliancecopy preferences or rule set 164. Backup copy rule set 160 specifiesthat it is associated with file system subclient 166 and email subclient168. Each of subclients 166 and 168 are associated with the particularclient computing device 102. Backup copy rule set 160 further specifiesthat the backup operation will be written to disk library 108A anddesignates a particular media agent 144A to convey the data to disklibrary 108A. Finally, backup copy rule set 160 specifies that backupcopies created according to rule set 160 are scheduled to be generatedhourly and are to be retained for 30 days. In some other embodiments,scheduling information is not included in storage policy 148A and isinstead specified by a separate scheduling policy. Disaster recoverycopy rule set 162 is associated with the same two subclients 166 and168. However, disaster recovery copy rule set 162 is associated withtape library 108B, unlike backup copy rule set 160. Moreover, disasterrecovery copy rule set 162 specifies that a different media agent,namely 144B, will convey data to tape library 108B. Disaster recoverycopies created according to rule set 162 will be retained for 60 daysand will be generated daily. Disaster recovery copies generatedaccording to disaster recovery copy rule set 162 can provide protectionin the event of a disaster or other catastrophic data loss that wouldaffect the backup copy 116A maintained on disk library 108A. Compliancecopy rule set 164 is only associated with the email subclient 168, andnot the file system subclient 166. Compliance copies generated accordingto compliance copy rule set 164 will therefore not include primary data112A from the file system subclient 166. For instance, the organizationmay be under an obligation to store and maintain copies of email datafor a particular period of time (e.g., 10 years) to comply with state orfederal regulations, while similar regulations do not apply to filesystem data. Compliance copy rule set 164 is associated with the sametape library 108B and media agent 144B as disaster recovery copy ruleset 162, although a different storage device or media agent could beused in other embodiments. Finally, compliance copy rule set 164specifies that the copies it governs will be generated quarterly andretained for 10 years.

Secondary Copy Jobs

A logical grouping of secondary copy operations governed by a rule setand being initiated at a point in time may be referred to as a“secondary copy job” (and sometimes may be called a “backup job,” eventhough it is not necessarily limited to creating only backup copies).Secondary copy jobs may be initiated on demand as well. Steps 1-9 belowillustrate three secondary copy jobs based on storage policy 148A.

Referring to FIG. 1E, at step 1, storage manager 140 initiates a backupjob according to the backup copy rule set 160, which logically comprisesall the secondary copy operations necessary to effectuate rules 160 instorage policy 148A every hour, including steps 1-4 occurring hourly.For instance, a scheduling service running on storage manager 140accesses backup copy rule set 160 or a separate scheduling policyassociated with client computing device 102 and initiates a backup jobon an hourly basis. Thus, at the scheduled time, storage manager 140sends instructions to client computing device 102 (i.e., to both dataagent 142A and data agent 142B) to begin the backup job. At step 2, filesystem data agent 142A and email data agent 142B on client computingdevice 102 respond to instructions from storage manager 140 by accessingand processing the respective subclient primary data 112A and 112Binvolved in the backup copy operation, which can be found in primarystorage device 104. Because the secondary copy operation is a backupcopy operation, the data agent(s) 142A, 142B may format the data into abackup format or otherwise process the data suitable for a backup copy.At step 3, client computing device 102 communicates the processed filesystem data (e.g., using file system data agent 142A) and the processedemail data (e.g., using email data agent 142B) to the first media agent144A according to backup copy rule set 160, as directed by storagemanager 140. Storage manager 140 may further keep a record in managementdatabase 146 of the association between media agent 144A and one or moreof: client computing device 102, file system subclient 112A, file systemdata agent 142A, email subclient 112B, email data agent 142B, and/orbackup copy 116A.

The target media agent 144A receives the data-agent-processed data fromclient computing device 102, and at step 4 generates and conveys backupcopy 116A to disk library 108A to be stored as backup copy 116A, againat the direction of storage manager 140 and according to backup copyrule set 160. Media agent 144A can also update its index 153 to includedata and/or metadata related to backup copy 116A, such as informationindicating where the backup copy 116A resides on disk library 108A,where the email copy resides, where the file system copy resides, dataand metadata for cache retrieval, etc. Storage manager 140 may similarlyupdate its index 150 to include information relating to the secondarycopy operation, such as information relating to the type of operation, aphysical location associated with one or more copies created by theoperation, the time the operation was performed, status informationrelating to the operation, the components involved in the operation, andthe like. In some cases, storage manager 140 may update its index 150 toinclude some or all of the information stored in index 153 of mediaagent 144A. At this point, the backup job may be considered complete.After the 30-day retention period expires, storage manager 140 instructsmedia agent 144A to delete backup copy 116A from disk library 108A andindexes 150 and/or 153 are updated accordingly. At step 5, storagemanager 140 initiates another backup job for a disaster recovery copyaccording to the disaster recovery rule set 162. Illustratively thisincludes steps 5-7 occurring daily for creating disaster recovery copy116B. Illustratively, and by way of illustrating the scalable aspectsand off-loading principles embedded in system 100, disaster recoverycopy 116B is based on backup copy 116A and not on primary data 112A and112B. At step 6, illustratively based on instructions received fromstorage manager 140 at step 5, the specified media agent 144B retrievesthe most recent backup copy 116A from disk library 108A. At step 7,again at the direction of storage manager 140 and as specified indisaster recovery copy rule set 162, media agent 144B uses the retrieveddata to create a disaster recovery copy 116B and store it to tapelibrary 108B. In some cases, disaster recovery copy 116B is a direct,mirror copy of backup copy 116A, and remains in the backup format. Inother embodiments, disaster recovery copy 116B may be further compressedor encrypted, or may be generated in some other manner, such as by usingprimary data 112A and 112B from primary storage device 104 as sources.The disaster recovery copy operation is initiated once a day anddisaster recovery copies 116B are deleted after 60 days; indexes 153and/or 150 are updated accordingly when/after each informationmanagement operation is executed and/or completed. The present backupjob may be considered completed. At step 8, storage manager 140initiates another backup job according to compliance rule set 164, whichperforms steps 8-9 quarterly to create compliance copy 116C. Forinstance, storage manager 140 instructs media agent 144B to createcompliance copy 116C on tape library 108B, as specified in thecompliance copy rule set 164. At step 9 in the example, compliance copy116C is generated using disaster recovery copy 116B as the source. Thisis efficient, because disaster recovery copy resides on the samesecondary storage device and thus no network resources are required tomove the data. In other embodiments, compliance copy 116C is insteadgenerated using primary data 112B corresponding to the email subclientor using backup copy 116A from disk library 108A as source data. Asspecified in the illustrated example, compliance copies 116C are createdquarterly, and are deleted after ten years, and indexes 153 and/or 150are kept up-to-date accordingly.

Example Applications of Storage Policies—Information Governance Policiesand Classification

Again referring to FIG. 1E, storage manager 140 may permit a user tospecify aspects of storage policy 148A. For example, the storage policycan be modified to include information governance policies to define howdata should be managed in order to comply with a certain regulation orbusiness objective. The various policies may be stored, for example, inmanagement database 146. An information governance policy may align withone or more compliance tasks that are imposed by regulations or businessrequirements. Examples of information governance policies might includea Sarbanes-Oxley policy, a HIPAA policy, an electronic discovery(e-discovery) policy, and so on. Information governance policies allowadministrators to obtain different perspectives on an organization'sonline and offline data, without the need for a dedicated data silocreated solely for each different viewpoint. As described previously,the data storage systems herein build an index that reflects thecontents of a distributed data set that spans numerous clients andstorage devices, including both primary data and secondary copies, andonline and offline copies. An organization may apply multipleinformation governance policies in a top-down manner over that unifieddata set and indexing schema in order to view and manipulate the dataset through different lenses, each of which is adapted to a particularcompliance or business goal. Thus, for example, by applying ane-discovery policy and a Sarbanes-Oxley policy, two different groups ofusers in an organization can conduct two very different analyses of thesame underlying physical set of data/copies, which may be distributedthroughout the information management system.

An information governance policy may comprise a classification policy,which defines a taxonomy of classification terms or tags relevant to acompliance task and/or business objective. A classification policy mayalso associate a defined tag with a classification rule. Aclassification rule defines a particular combination of criteria, suchas users who have created, accessed or modified a document or dataobject; file or application types; content or metadata keywords; clientsor storage locations; dates of data creation and/or access; reviewstatus or other status within a workflow (e.g., reviewed orun-reviewed); modification times or types of modifications; and/or anyother data attributes in any combination, without limitation. Aclassification rule may also be defined using other classification tagsin the taxonomy. The various criteria used to define a classificationrule may be combined in any suitable fashion, for example, via Booleanoperators, to define a complex classification rule. As an example, ane-discovery classification policy might define a classification tag“privileged” that is associated with documents or data objects that (1)were created or modified by legal department staff, or (2) were sent toor received from outside counsel via email, or (3) contain one of thefollowing keywords: “privileged” or “attorney” or “counsel,” or otherlike terms. Accordingly, all these documents or data objects will beclassified as “privileged.”

One specific type of classification tag, which may be added to an indexat the time of indexing, is an “entity tag.” An entity tag may be, forexample, any content that matches a defined data mask format. Examplesof entity tags might include, e.g., social security numbers (e.g., anynumerical content matching the formatting mask XXX-XX-XXXX), credit cardnumbers (e.g., content having a 13-16 digit string of numbers), SKUnumbers, product numbers, etc. A user may define a classification policyby indicating criteria, parameters or descriptors of the policy via agraphical user interface, such as a form or page with fields to befilled in, pull-down menus or entries allowing one or more of severaloptions to be selected, buttons, sliders, hypertext links or other knownuser interface tools for receiving user input, etc. For example, a usermay define certain entity tags, such as a particular product number orproject ID. In some implementations, the classification policy can beimplemented using cloud-based techniques. For example, the storagedevices may be cloud storage devices, and the storage manager 140 mayexecute cloud service provider API over a network to classify datastored on cloud storage devices.

Restore Operations from Secondary Copies

While not shown in FIG. 1E, at some later point in time, a restoreoperation can be initiated involving one or more of secondary copies116A, 116B, and 116C. A restore operation logically takes a selectedsecondary copy 116, reverses the effects of the secondary copy operationthat created it, and stores the restored data to primary storage where aclient computing device 102 may properly access it as primary data. Amedia agent 144 and an appropriate data agent 142 (e.g., executing onthe client computing device 102) perform the tasks needed to complete arestore operation. For example, data that was encrypted, compressed,and/or deduplicated in the creation of secondary copy 116 will becorrespondingly rehydrated (reversing deduplication), uncompressed, andunencrypted into a format appropriate to primary data. Metadata storedwithin or associated with the secondary copy 116 may be used during therestore operation. In general, restored data should be indistinguishablefrom other primary data 112. Preferably, the restored data has fullyregained the native format that may make it immediately usable byapplication 110.

As one example, a user may manually initiate a restore of backup copy116A, e.g., by interacting with user interface 158 of storage manager140 or with a web-based console with access to system 100. Storagemanager 140 may accesses data in its index 150 and/or managementdatabase 146 (and/or the respective storage policy 148A) associated withthe selected backup copy 116A to identify the appropriate media agent144A and/or secondary storage device 108A where the secondary copyresides. The user may be presented with a representation (e.g., stub,thumbnail, listing, etc.) and metadata about the selected secondarycopy, in order to determine whether this is the appropriate copy to berestored, e.g., date that the original primary data was created. Storagemanager 140 will then instruct media agent 144A and an appropriate dataagent 142 on the target client computing device 102 to restore secondarycopy 116A to primary storage device 104. A media agent may be selectedfor use in the restore operation based on a load balancing algorithm, anavailability based algorithm, or other criteria. The selected mediaagent, e.g., 144A, retrieves secondary copy 116A from disk library 108A.For instance, media agent 144A may access its index 153 to identify alocation of backup copy 116A on disk library 108A, or may accesslocation information residing on disk library 108A itself.

In some cases, a backup copy 116A that was recently created or accessed,may be cached to speed up the restore operation. In such a case, mediaagent 144A accesses a cached version of all or part of backup copy 116Aresiding in index 153, without having to access disk library 108A forsome or all of the data. Once it has retrieved backup copy 116A, themedia agent 144A communicates the data to the requesting clientcomputing device 102. Upon receipt, file system data agent 142A andemail data agent 142B may unpack (e.g., restore from a backup format tothe native application format) the data in backup copy 116A and restorethe unpackaged data to primary storage device 104. In general, secondarycopies 116 may be restored to the same volume or folder in primarystorage device 104 from which the secondary copy was derived; to anotherstorage location or client computing device 102; to shared storage, etc.In some cases, the data may be restored so that it may be used by anapplication 110 of a different version/vintage from the application thatcreated the original primary data 112.

Example Secondary Copy Formatting

The formatting and structure of secondary copies 116 can vary dependingon the embodiment. In some cases, secondary copies 116 are formatted asa series of logical data units or “chunks” (e.g., 512 MB, 1 GB, 2 GB, 4GB, or 8 GB chunks). This can facilitate efficient communication andwriting to secondary storage devices 108, e.g., according to resourceavailability. For example, a single secondary copy 116 may be written ona chunk-by-chunk basis to one or more secondary storage devices 108. Insome cases, users can select different chunk sizes, e.g., to improvethroughput to tape storage devices. Generally, each chunk can include aheader and a payload. The payload can include files (or other dataunits) or subsets thereof included in the chunk, whereas the chunkheader generally includes metadata relating to the chunk, some or all ofwhich may be derived from the payload. For example, during a secondarycopy operation, media agent 144, storage manager 140, or other componentmay divide files into chunks and generate headers for each chunk byprocessing the files. Headers can include a variety of information suchas file and/or volume identifier(s), offset(s), and/or other informationassociated with the payload data items, a chunk sequence number, etc.Importantly, in addition to being stored with secondary copy 116 onsecondary storage device 108, chunk headers can also be stored to index153 of the associated media agent(s) 144 and/or to index 150 associatedwith storage manager 140. This can be useful for providing fasterprocessing of secondary copies 116 during browsing, restores, or otheroperations. In some cases, once a chunk is successfully transferred to asecondary storage device 108, the secondary storage device 108 returnsan indication of receipt, e.g., to media agent 144 and/or storagemanager 140, which may update their respective indexes 153, 150accordingly. During restore, chunks may be processed (e.g., by mediaagent 144) according to the information in the chunk header toreassemble the files.

Data can also be communicated within system 100 in data channels thatconnect client computing devices 102 to secondary storage devices 108.These data channels can be referred to as “data streams,” and multipledata streams can be employed to parallelize an information managementoperation, improving data transfer rate, among other advantages. Exampledata formatting techniques including techniques involving datastreaming, chunking, and the use of other data structures in creatingsecondary copies are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,315,923, 8,156,086,and 8,578,120. FIGS. 1F and 1G are diagrams of example data streams 170and 171, respectively, which may be employed for performing informationmanagement operations. Referring to FIG. 1F, data agent 142 forms datastream 170 from source data associated with a client computing device102 (e.g., primary data 112). Data stream 170 is composed of multiplepairs of stream header 172 and stream data (or stream payload) 174. Datastreams 170 and 171 shown in the illustrated example are for asingle-instanced storage operation, and a stream payload 174 thereforemay include both single-instance (SI) data and/or non-SI data. A streamheader 172 includes metadata about the stream payload 174. This metadatamay include, for example, a length of the stream payload 174, anindication of whether the stream payload 174 is encrypted, an indicationof whether the stream payload 174 is compressed, an archive fileidentifier (ID), an indication of whether the stream payload 174 issingle instanceable, and an indication of whether the stream payload 174is a start of a block of data.

Referring to FIG. 1G, data stream 171 has the stream header 172 andstream payload 174 aligned into multiple data blocks. In this example,the data blocks are of size 64 KB. The first two stream header 172 andstream payload 174 pairs comprise a first data block of size 64 KB. Thefirst stream header 172 indicates that the length of the succeedingstream payload 174 is 63 KB and that it is the start of a data block.The next stream header 172 indicates that the succeeding stream payload174 has a length of 1 KB and that it is not the start of a new datablock. Immediately following stream payload 174 is a pair comprising anidentifier header 176 and identifier data 178. The identifier header 176includes an indication that the succeeding identifier data 178 includesthe identifier for the immediately previous data block. The identifierdata 178 includes the identifier that the data agent 142 generated forthe data block. The data stream 171 also includes other stream header172 and stream payload 174 pairs, which may be for SI data and/or non-SIdata.

FIG. 1H is a diagram illustrating data structures 180 that may be usedto store blocks of SI data and non-SI data on a storage device (e.g.,secondary storage device 108). According to certain embodiments, datastructures 180 do not form part of a native file system of the storagedevice. Data structures 180 include one or more volume folders 182, oneor more chunk folders 184/185 within the volume folder 182, and multiplefiles within chunk folder 184. Each chunk folder 184/185 includes ametadata file 186/187, a metadata index file 188/189, one or morecontainer files 190/191/193, and a container index file 192/194.Metadata file 186/187 stores non-SI data blocks as well as links to SIdata blocks stored in container files. Metadata index file 188/189stores an index to the data in the metadata file 186/187. Containerfiles 190/191/193 store SI data blocks. Container index file 192/194stores an index to container files 190/191/193. Among other things,container index file 192/194 stores an indication of whether acorresponding block in a container file 190/191/193 is referred to by alink in a metadata file 186/187. For example, data block B2 in thecontainer file 190 is referred to by a link in metadata file 187 inchunk folder 185. Accordingly, the corresponding index entry incontainer index file 192 indicates that data block B2 in container file190 is referred to. As another example, data block B1 in container file191 is referred to by a link in metadata file 187, and so thecorresponding index entry in container index file 192 indicates thatthis data block is referred to.

As an example, data structures 180 illustrated in FIG. 1H may have beencreated as a result of separate secondary copy operations involving twoclient computing devices 102. For example, a first secondary copyoperation on a first client computing device 102 could result in thecreation of the first chunk folder 184, and a second secondary copyoperation on a second client computing device 102 could result in thecreation of the second chunk folder 185. Container files 190/191 in thefirst chunk folder 184 would contain the blocks of SI data of the firstclient computing device 102. If the two client computing devices 102have substantially similar data, the second secondary copy operation onthe data of the second client computing device 102 would result in mediaagent 144 storing primarily links to the data blocks of the first clientcomputing device 102 that are already stored in the container files190/191. Accordingly, while a first secondary copy operation may resultin storing nearly all of the data subject to the operation, subsequentsecondary storage operations involving similar data may result insubstantial data storage space savings, because links to already storeddata blocks can be stored instead of additional instances of datablocks.

If the operating system of the secondary storage computing device 106 onwhich media agent 144 operates supports sparse files, then when mediaagent 144 creates container files 190/191/193, it can create them assparse files. A sparse file is a type of file that may include emptyspace (e.g., a sparse file may have real data within it, such as at thebeginning of the file and/or at the end of the file, but may also haveempty space in it that is not storing actual data, such as a contiguousrange of bytes all having a value of zero). Having container files190/191/193 be sparse files allows media agent 144 to free up space incontainer files 190/191/193 when blocks of data in container files190/191/193 no longer need to be stored on the storage devices. In someexamples, media agent 144 creates a new container file 190/191/193 whena container file 190/191/193 either includes 100 blocks of data or whenthe size of the container file 190 exceeds 50 MB. In other examples,media agent 144 creates a new container file 190/191/193 when acontainer file 190/191/193 satisfies other criteria (e.g., it containsfrom approx. 100 to approx. 1000 blocks or when its size exceedsapproximately 50 MB to 1 GB). In some cases, a file on which a secondarycopy operation is performed may comprise a large number of data blocks.For example, a 100 MB file may comprise 400 data blocks of size 256 KB.If such a file is to be stored, its data blocks may span more than onecontainer file, or even more than one chunk folder. As another example,a database file of 20 GB may comprise over 40,000 data blocks of size512 KB. If such a database file is to be stored, its data blocks willlikely span multiple container files, multiple chunk folders, andpotentially multiple volume folders. Restoring such files may requireaccessing multiple container files, chunk folders, and/or volume foldersto obtain the requisite data blocks.

Using Backup Data for Replication and Disaster Recovery (“LiveSynchronization”)

There is an increased demand to off-load resource intensive informationmanagement tasks (e.g., data replication tasks) away from productiondevices (e.g., physical or virtual client computing devices) in order tomaximize production efficiency. At the same time, enterprises expectaccess to readily-available up-to-date recovery copies in the event offailure, with little or no production downtime.

FIG. 2A illustrates a system 200 configured to address these and otherissues by using backup or other secondary copy data to synchronize asource subsystem 201 (e.g., a production site) with a destinationsubsystem 203 (e.g., a failover site). Such a technique can be referredto as “live synchronization” and/or “live synchronization replication.”In the illustrated embodiment, the source client computing devices 202 ainclude one or more virtual machines (or “VMs”) executing on one or morecorresponding VM host computers 205 a, though the source need not bevirtualized. The destination site 203 may be at a location that isremote from the production site 201, or may be located in the same datacenter, without limitation. One or more of the production site 201 anddestination site 203 may reside at data centers at known geographiclocations, or alternatively may operate “in the cloud.” Thesynchronization can be achieved by generally applying an ongoing streamof incremental backups from the source subsystem 201 to the destinationsubsystem 203, such as according to what can be referred to as an“incremental forever” approach. FIG. 2A illustrates an embodiment of adata flow which may be orchestrated at the direction of one or morestorage managers (not shown). At step 1, the source data agent(s) 242 aand source media agent(s) 244 a work together to write backup or othersecondary copies of the primary data generated by the source clientcomputing devices 202 a into the source secondary storage device(s) 208a. At step 2, the backup/secondary copies are retrieved by the sourcemedia agent(s) 244 a from secondary storage. At step 3, source mediaagent(s) 244 a communicate the backup/secondary copies across a networkto the destination media agent(s) 244 b in destination subsystem 203. Asshown, the data can be copied from source to destination in anincremental fashion, such that only changed blocks are transmitted, andin some cases multiple incremental backups are consolidated at thesource so that only the most current changed blocks are transmitted toand applied at the destination. An example of live synchronization ofvirtual machines using the “incremental forever” approach is found inU.S. Pat. No. 10,228,962 entitled “Live Synchronization and Managementof Virtual Machines across Computing and Virtualization Platforms andUsing Live Synchronization to Support Disaster Recovery.” Moreover, adeduplicated copy can be employed to further reduce network traffic fromsource to destination. For instance, the system can utilize thededuplicated copy techniques described in U.S. Pat. No. 9,239,687,entitled “Systems and Methods for Retaining and Using Data BlockSignatures in Data Protection Operations.”

At step 4, destination media agent(s) 244 b write the receivedbackup/secondary copy data to the destination secondary storagedevice(s) 208 b. At step 5, the synchronization is completed when thedestination media agent(s) and destination data agent(s) 242 b restorethe backup/secondary copy data to the destination client computingdevice(s) 202 b. The destination client computing device(s) 202 b may bekept “warm” awaiting activation in case failure is detected at thesource. This synchronization/replication process can incorporate thetechniques described in U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2016/0350391 entitled“Replication Using Deduplicated Secondary Copy Data.” Where theincremental backups are applied on a frequent, on-going basis, thesynchronized copies can be viewed as mirror or replication copies.Moreover, by applying the incremental backups to the destination site203 using backup or other secondary copy data, the production site 201is not burdened with the synchronization operations. Because thedestination site 203 can be maintained in a synchronized “warm” state,the downtime for switching over from the production site 201 to thedestination site 203 is substantially less than with a typical restorefrom secondary storage. Thus, the production site 201 may flexibly andefficiently fail over, with minimal downtime and with relativelyup-to-date data, to a destination site 203, such as a cloud-basedfailover site. The destination site 203 can later be reversesynchronized back to the production site 201, such as after repairs havebeen implemented or after the failure has passed.

Integrating with the Cloud Using File System Protocols

Given the ubiquity of cloud computing, it can be increasingly useful toprovide data protection and other information management services in ascalable, transparent, and highly plug-able fashion. FIG. 2B illustratesan information management system 200 having an architecture thatprovides such advantages, and incorporates use of a standard file systemprotocol between primary storage subsystem 217 and secondary storagesubsystem 218. As shown, the use of the Network File System (NFS)protocol (or any another appropriate file system protocol such as thatof the Common Internet File System (CIFS)) allows data agent 242 tooperate in the secondary storage subsystem 218. For instance, asindicated by the dashed box 206 around data agent 242 and media agent244, data agent 242 can co-reside with media agent 244 on the sameserver (e.g., a secondary storage computing device such as component106), or in some other location in secondary storage subsystem 218.

Where NFS is used, for example, secondary storage subsystem 218allocates an NFS network path to the client computing device 202 or toone or more target applications 210 running on client computing device202. During a backup or other secondary copy operation, the clientcomputing device 202 mounts the designated NFS path and writes data tothat NFS path. The NFS path may be obtained from NFS path data 215stored locally at the client computing device 202, and which may be acopy of or otherwise derived from NFS path data 219 stored in thesecondary storage subsystem 218. Write requests issued by clientcomputing device(s) 202 are received by data agent 242 in secondarystorage subsystem 218, which translates the requests and works inconjunction with media agent 244 to process and write data to asecondary storage device(s) 208, thereby creating a backup or othersecondary copy. Storage manager 240 can include a pseudo-client manager216, which coordinates the process by, among other things, communicatinginformation relating to client computing device 202 and application 210(e.g., application type, client computing device identifier, etc.) todata agent 242, obtaining appropriate NFS path data from the data agent242 (e.g., NFS path information), and delivering such data to clientcomputing device 202. Conversely, during a restore or recoveryoperation, client computing device 202 reads from the designated NFSnetwork path, and the read request is translated by data agent 242. Thedata agent 242 then works with media agent 244 to retrieve, re-process(e.g., re-hydrate, decompress, decrypt), and forward the requested datato client computing device 202 using NFS.

By moving specialized software associated with system 200 such as dataagent 242 off the client computing devices 202, the illustrativearchitecture effectively decouples the client computing devices 202 fromthe installed components of system 200, improving both scalability andplug-ability of system 200. Indeed, the secondary storage subsystem 218in such environments can be treated simply as a read/write NFS targetfor primary storage subsystem 217, without the need for informationmanagement software to be installed on client computing devices 202. Asone example, an enterprise implementing a cloud production computingenvironment can add VM client computing devices 202 without installingand configuring specialized information management software on theseVMs. Rather, backups and restores are achieved transparently, where thenew VMs simply write to and read from the designated NFS path. Anexample of integrating with the cloud using file system protocols orso-called “infinite backup” using NFS share is found in U.S. Patent Pub.No. 2017/0235647 entitled “Data Protection Operations Based on NetworkPath Information.” Examples of improved data restoration scenarios basedon network-path information, including using stored backups effectivelyas primary data sources, may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 10,684,924entitled “Data Restoration Operations Based on Network PathInformation.”

Highly Scalable Managed Data Pool Architecture

Enterprises are seeing explosive data growth in recent years, often fromvarious applications running in geographically distributed locations.FIG. 2C shows a block diagram of an example of a highly scalable,managed data pool architecture useful in accommodating such data growth.The illustrated system 200, which may be referred to as a “web-scale”architecture according to certain embodiments, can be readilyincorporated into both open compute/storage and common-cloudarchitectures. The illustrated system 200 includes a grid 245 of mediaagents 244 logically organized into a control tier 231 and a secondaryor storage tier 233. Media agents assigned to the storage tier 233 canbe configured to manage a secondary storage pool 208 as a deduplicationstore, and be configured to receive client write and read requests fromthe primary storage subsystem 217, and direct those requests to thesecondary tier 233 for servicing. For instance, media agents CMA1-CMA3in the control tier 231 maintain and consult one or more deduplicationdatabases 247, which can include deduplication information (e.g., datablock hashes, data block links, file containers for deduplicated files,etc.) sufficient to read deduplicated files from secondary storage pool208 and write deduplicated files to secondary storage pool 208. Forinstance, system 200 can incorporate any of the deduplication systemsand methods shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 9,020,900, entitled“Distributed Deduplicated Storage System,” and U.S. Pat. No. 9,633,033entitled “High Availability Distributed Deduplicated Storage System.”

Media agents SMA1-SMA6 assigned to the secondary tier 233 receive writeand read requests from media agents CMA1-CMA3 in control tier 231, andaccess secondary storage pool 208 to service those requests. Mediaagents CMA1-CMA3 in control tier 231 can also communicate with secondarystorage pool 208, and may execute read and write requests themselves(e.g., in response to requests from other control media agentsCMA1-CMA3) in addition to issuing requests to media agents in secondarytier 233. Moreover, while shown as separate from the secondary storagepool 208, deduplication database(s) 247 can in some cases reside instorage devices in secondary storage pool 208. As shown, each of themedia agents 244 (e.g., CMA1-CMA3, SMA1-SMA6, etc.) in grid 245 can beallocated a corresponding dedicated partition 251A-251I, respectively,in secondary storage pool 208. Each partition 251 can include a firstportion 253 containing data associated with (e.g., stored by) mediaagent 244 corresponding to the respective partition 251. System 200 canalso implement a desired level of replication, thereby providingredundancy in the event of a failure of a media agent 244 in grid 245.Along these lines, each partition 251 can further include a secondportion 255 storing one or more replication copies of the dataassociated with one or more other media agents 244 in the grid.

System 200 can also be configured to allow for seamless addition ofmedia agents 244 to grid 245 via automatic configuration. As oneillustrative example, a storage manager (not shown) or other appropriatecomponent may determine that it is appropriate to add an additional nodeto control tier 231, and perform some or all of the following: (i)assess the capabilities of a newly added or otherwise availablecomputing device as satisfying a minimum criteria to be configured as orhosting a media agent in control tier 231; (ii) confirm that asufficient amount of the appropriate type of storage exists to supportan additional node in control tier 231 (e.g., enough disk drive capacityexists in storage pool 208 to support an additional deduplicationdatabase 247); (iii) install appropriate media agent software on thecomputing device and configure the computing device according to apre-determined template; (iv) establish a partition 251 in the storagepool 208 dedicated to the newly established media agent 244; and (v)build any appropriate data structures (e.g., an instance ofdeduplication database 247). An example of highly scalable managed datapool architecture or so-called web-scale architecture for storage anddata management is found in U.S. Pat. No. 10,255,143 entitled“Deduplication Replication In A Distributed Deduplication Data StorageSystem.”

The embodiments and components thereof disclosed in FIGS. 2A, 2B, and2C, as well as those in FIGS. 1A-1H, may be implemented in anycombination and permutation to satisfy data storage management andinformation management needs at one or more locations and/or datacenters.

Cloud Computing.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provides thefollowing definition of Cloud Computing characteristics, service models,and deployment models:

-   -   Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient,        on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable        computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage,        applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and        released with minimal management effort or service provider        interaction. This cloud model is composed of five essential        characteristics, three service models, and four deployment        models.

Essential Characteristics:

-   -   On-demand self-service. A consumer can unilaterally provision        computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage,        as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with        each service provider.    -   Broad network access. Capabilities are available over the        network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote        use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms (e.g.,        mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and workstations).    -   Resource pooling. The provider's computing resources are pooled        to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with        different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned        and reassigned according to consumer demand. There is a sense of        location independence in that the customer generally has no        control or knowledge over the exact location of the provided        resources but may be able to specify location at a higher level        of abstraction (e.g., country, state, or datacenter). Examples        of resources include storage, processing, memory, and network        bandwidth.    -   Rapid elasticity. Capabilities can be elastically provisioned        and released, in some cases automatically, to scale rapidly        outward and inward commensurate with demand. To the consumer,        the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be        unlimited and can be appropriated in any quantity at any time.    -   Measured service. Cloud systems automatically control and        optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability¹ at        some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service        (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user        accounts). Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and        reported, providing transparency for both the provider and        consumer of the utilized service. ¹ Typically this is done on a        pay-per-use or charge-per-use basis.

Service Models:

-   -   Software as a Service (SaaS). The capability provided to the        consumer is to use the provider's applications running on a        cloud infrastructure². The applications are accessible from        various client devices through either a thin client interface,        such as a web browser (e.g., web-based email), or a program        interface. The consumer does not manage or control the        underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers,        operating systems, storage, or even individual application        capabilities, with the possible exception of limited        user-specific application configuration settings. ² A cloud        infrastructure is the collection of hardware and software that        enables the five essential characteristics of cloud computing.        The cloud infrastructure can be viewed as containing both a        physical layer and an abstraction layer. The physical layer        consists of the hardware resources that are necessary to support        the cloud services being provided, and typically includes        server, storage and network components. The abstraction layer        consists of the software deployed across the physical layer,        which manifests the essential cloud characteristics.        Conceptually the abstraction layer sits above the physical        layer.    -   Platform as a Service (PaaS). The capability provided to the        consumer is to deploy onto the cloud infrastructure        consumer-created or acquired applications created using        programming languages, libraries, services, and tools supported        by the provider.³ The consumer does not manage or control the        underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers,        operating systems, or storage, but has control over the deployed        applications and possibly configuration settings for the        application-hosting environment. ³ This capability does not        necessarily preclude the use of compatible programming        languages, libraries, services, and tools from other sources.    -   Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). The capability provided to        the consumer is to provision processing, storage, networks, and        other fundamental computing resources where the consumer is able        to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include        operating systems and applications. The consumer does not manage        or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control        over operating systems, storage, and deployed applications; and        possibly limited control of select networking components (e.g.,        host firewalls).

Deployment Models:

-   -   Private cloud. The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for        exclusive use by a single organization comprising multiple        consumers (e.g., business units). It may be owned, managed, and        operated by the organization, a third party, or some combination        of them, and it may exist on or off premises.    -   Community cloud. The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for        exclusive use by a specific community of consumers from        organizations that have shared concerns (e.g., mission, security        requirements, policy, and compliance considerations). It may be        owned, managed, and operated by one or more of the organizations        in the community, a third party, or some combination of them,        and it may exist on or off premises.    -   Public cloud. The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for open        use by the general public. It may be owned, managed, and        operated by a business, academic, or government organization, or        some combination of them. It exists on the premises of the cloud        provider.    -   Hybrid cloud. The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two        or more distinct cloud infrastructures (private, community, or        public) that remain unique entities, but are bound together by        standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and        application portability (e.g., cloud bursting for load balancing        between clouds).

Source: Peter Mell, Timothy Grance (September 2011). The NIST Definitionof Cloud Computing, National Institute of Standards and Technology: U.S.Department of Commerce. Special publication 800-145.nvIpubs.nist.govinistpubs/Legacy/SP/nistspecialpublication800-145.pdf(accessed 26 Apr. 2019). Cloud computing aims to allow those who consumethe services (whether individuals or organizations) to benefit from theavailable technologies without the need for deep knowledge about orexpertise with each of them. Wikipedia, Cloud Computing,en.wikipedia.ordwiki/Cloud_computing (accessed 26 Apr. 2019). “Cloudcomputing metaphor: the group of networked elements providing servicesneed not be individually addressed or managed by users; instead, theentire provider-managed suite of hardware and software can be thought ofas an amorphous cloud.” Id.

Cloud Service Accounts and Variability in Cloud Services. Cloud serviceproviders such as Amazon, Microsoft, Alibaba, Google, Salesforce, Cisco,etc. provide access to their particular cloud services via cloud serviceaccounts, such as corporate accounts, departmental accounts, individualuser accounts, etc. Each cloud service account typically hasauthentication features, e.g., passwords, certificates, etc., torestrict and control access to the cloud service. Each account alsomight have service level guarantees and/or other terms and conditionsbetween the cloud service provider and the service subscriber, e.g., acompany, a government agency, an individual user. A subscribing entitymight have multiple accounts with a cloud service provider, such as anaccount for the Engineering department, an account for the Financedepartment, an account for the Human Resources department, otheraccounts for individual company users, etc., without limitation. Eachcloud service account carries different authentication, even though theservices subscriber is the same entity.

Different cloud service accounts might differ not just in service levelguarantees, but might include different services. For example, oneaccount might include long-term storage resources, whereas anotheraccount might be limited to ordinary data storage. For example, someaccounts might have access to data processing functions supplied by thecloud service provider, such as machine learning algorithms, statisticalanalysis packages, etc., whereas other accounts might lack suchfeatures. Accordingly, the resources available to the user(s) of cloudservice accounts can vary as between accounts, even if the accounts havethe same subscriber and the same cloud service provider. Thus, the userexperience and the technologies available as between cloud serviceaccounts can vary significantly. Thus, when considering cloud computing,the specifics of cloud service accounts can play a role in theavailability and/or portability of resources. Crossing accountboundaries can pose technological barriers when considering migration ofapplications and their cloud services assets.

Cloud Availability Zones. “Availability zones (AZs) are isolatedlocations within . . . regions from which public cloud servicesoriginate and operate. Regions are geographic locations in which publiccloud service providers' data centers reside. Businesses choose one ormultiple worldwide availability zones for their services depending onbusiness needs. Businesses select availability zones for a variety ofreasons, including compliance and proximity to end customers. Cloudadministrators can also choose to replicate services across multipleavailability zones to decrease latency or protect resources. Admins canmove resources to another availability zone in the event of an outage.Certain cloud services may also be limited to particular regions orAZs.” Source: Margaret Rouse, Definition of Availability Zones,TechTarget, searchaws.techtarget.com/definition/availability-zones(accessed 26 Apr. 2019).

Here is a vendor-specific example of how cloud service availabilityzones are organized in the Google Cloud: “Certain [Google] ComputeEngine resources live in regions or zones. A region is a specificgeographical location where you can run your resources. Each region hasone or more zones; most regions have three or more zones. For example,the us-central1 region denotes a region in the Central United Statesthat has zones us-central1-a, us-central1-b, us-central1-c, andus-central1-f. Resources that live in a zone, such as instances orpersistent disks, are referred to as zonal resources. Other resources,like static external IP addresses, are regional. Regional resources canbe used by any resources in that region, regardless of zone, while zonalresources can only be used by other resources in the same zone. Forexample, disks and instances are both zonal resources. To attach a diskto an instance, both resources must be in the same zone. Similarly, ifyou want to assign a static IP address to an instance, the instance mustbe in the same region as the static IP. Only certain resources areregion- or zone-specific. Other resources, such as images, are globalresources that can be used by any other resources across any location.For information on global, regional, and zonal Compute Engine resources,see Global, Regional, and Zonal Resources.” Source: Google Cloud Regionsand Zones, cloud.google.com/compute/docs/regions-zones/(accessed 26 Apr.2019) (emphasis added).

Accordingly, when considering cloud computing, availability zones canplay a role in the availability and/or portability of resources.Crossing zone boundaries can pose technological barriers whenconsidering migration of applications and their cloud service assets,even when the different availability zones are supplied by the samecloud service provider.

Traditional Non-Cloud (“On-Premises”) Data Centers are Distinguishablefrom Cloud Computing. Traditional data centers generally do not havecloud computing characteristics. For example, the user experience isgenerally different, for example in regard to the name space(s) used forthe storage, computing, and network resources. Moreover, substantialincreases in resources needed by a user are not provisioned on demand. Atraditional data center is physically located within theenterprise/organization that owns it. A traditional non-cloud datacenter might comprise computing resources such as servers, mainframes,virtual servers/clusters, etc.; and/or data storage resources, such asnetwork-attached storage, storage area networks, tape libraries, etc.The owner of the traditional data center procures hardware, software,and network infrastructure (including making the associated capitalinvestments); and manages going-forward planning for the data center. Atraditional data center is staffed by professional InformationTechnology (IT) personnel, who are responsible for the data center'sconfiguration, operation, upgrades, and maintenance. Thus, a traditionalnon-cloud data center can be thought of as self-managed by itsowner/operator for the benefit of in-house users, as compared to cloudcomputing, which is managed by the cloud service provider and suppliedas a service to outside subscribers. Clearly, a cloud computing servicealso has hardware, software, and networking infrastructure andprofessionals staffing it, as well as having an owner responsible forhousing and paying for the infrastructure. However, the cloud computingservice is consumed differently, served differently, and deployeddifferently compared to non-cloud data centers. Traditional non-clouddata centers are sometimes referred to as “on-premises” data centers,because their facilities are literally within the bounds of theorganization that owns the data center. Cloud service providers' datacenters generally are not within the bounds of the subscriberorganization and are consumed “at a distance” “in the cloud.”

Accordingly, when considering cloud computing versus non-cloud datacenter deployment, the choice can play a role in the availability and/orportability of resources. Crossing boundaries between non-cloud datacenters and cloud computing can pose technological barriers. Forexample, storing a database at a non-cloud data center might requiredifferent resources and/or access features/controls than storing thedatabase at a cloud computing service. Thus, moving the database fromthe non-cloud data center to a cloud service account may require dataconversion, re-configuration, and/or adaptation that go above and beyondmerely copying the database. Likewise for virtual machines (VMs).Conversely, moving data, applications, VMs, and/or web services fromcloud computing to a non-cloud data center also can involve dataconversion, re-configuration, and/or adaptation to ensure success.

Service Models. Differences in service models, comparing non-cloud“on-premises” data centers versus IaaS versus PaaS versus SaaS, canyield different performance and cost profiles. Different service modelscan affect resource availability and/or portability ofdistributed/serverless applications, at least because the management ofdifferent resources rests with different providers and governed bydifferent terms and conditions. See, e.g., Stephen Watts, SaaS vs PaaSvs IaaS: What's The Difference and How To Choose, BMC Blogs, BMCSoftware, Inc.,www.bmc.com/blogs/saas-vs-paas-vs-iaas-whats-the-difference-and-how-to-choose/(accessed26 Apr. 2019).

In regard to the figures described herein, other embodiments arepossible within the scope of the present invention, such that theabove-recited components, steps, blocks, operations, messages, requests,queries, and/or instructions are differently arranged, sequenced,sub-divided, organized, and/or combined. In some embodiments, adifferent component may initiate or execute a given operation.

Air-Gapped Data Storage Pools

In secure or air-gapped computing systems, external computing devicescannot access the storage pools managed by such secure or air-gappedcomputing systems. This configuration limits spread of malware orransomware to the secure systems and thereby protecting the data managedand stored in this environment. At an illustrative air-gapped datastorage pool site, using specialized air-gapped media agents deployedwithin the air-gapped storage pool site, the illustrative system, at anunpredictable time, establishes a one-way data connection from asecondary storage site to the air-gapped data storage site to receivesecondary (e.g., backup) copies of the primary data stored at a primarysite. The air-gapped data storage pool site maybe implemented within acloud-based environment.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a scalable information managementsystem comprising an air-gapped configuration environment comprising aprimary data site 301, a secondary storage pool 350, and an air-gappeddata storage pool 360.

The primary data site 301 is connected via a network to the secondarystorage pool 350. The primary data site 301 is analogous to primarystorage subsystem 117, features of which are described in greater detailelsewhere herein. Primary data 340 is analogous to primary data 112,which is described in greater detail elsewhere herein and is not limitedto comprising only the primary data 340.

The secondary storage pool 350 is analogous to the secondary storagesubsystem 118, features of which are described in greater detailelsewhere herein. For example, the secondary storage pool 350 comprisesmedia agents 308 (analogous to media agents 144) and secondary copies318 (analogous to secondary copies 116).

The air-gapped data storage site 360 is analogous to the secondarystorage subsystem 118 and additionally may comprise many of the featuresdescribed herein, e.g., using an authentication technology such as atoken to access and read backup copies created by system; creatingreplica copies from backup copies with the same air-gapped environment;recognizing, parsing, and adopting the supplemental metadata found inbackup copies; directly integrating replica copies in a backup-to-backupintegration that does not require data restoration; and providing one ormore value-added services to data recovered, restored, and/orreconstructed from replica copies. Additional descriptions regardingair-gapped data storage systems are discussed in U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 17/120,555 filed Dec. 14, 2020, which is incorporated herein byreference in its entirety.

The air-gapped data storage site 360 may be deployed and hosted by acloud computing environment. The cloud computing environment is suppliedby a cloud service provider (e.g., Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services,Google Cloud Platform, etc.) via a cloud service account. In a cloudcomputing environment, any computing device described herein is deployedas a compute resource of the cloud computing environment (e.g., avirtual machine instance, a pod in a Kubernetes cluster or in anotherapplication orchestrator, etc.). Although the compute resource isaccessed as a service, it is provided by one or more hardware processorsand associated computer memory. Likewise, in a cloud computingenvironment, any data storage described herein may be deployed as acloud storage service of the cloud computing environment (e.g., “BlobStorage” on Microsoft Azure, etc.). Although the storage is accessed asa service, it is provided by one or more data storage devices.

The secure-copy tunnel is indicated by double line arrow from secondarycopies 318 to the air-gapped data storage site 360. A “pull” operationis used to read secondary copies 318 on demand with authentication. Theconnection is not persistent and is only initiated by the air-gappeddata storage site 360 when it needs to read secondary copies 318.Additional features and details describing the connection between thesecondary storage pool 350 and the air-gapped data storage site 360 aredescribed elsewhere herein.

The dotted arrow between the media agent(s) and the air-gapped mediaagent 310 demonstrates communication connection between the two sites.

Additional description regarding the air-gapped data storage pool 360may be found elsewhere herein.

Testing Configuration within an Air-Gapped Data Storage Site

Before an enterprise relies on data stored within the air-gapped datastorage site 360, it may want the data to be tested to confirm it isfunctional and free of malware/ransomware.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating a scalable information managementsystem comprising air-gapped configuration for testing secure copieswithin an air-gapped data storage site.

To test the secure copies data, the data needs to be restored to itsoriginal application format. In a typical air-gapped storage site 360the air-gapped media agent 310 is configured to perform a limited numberof backup and maintenance operations on the data is hosts and may not beconfigured to restoration operations. Therefore, an instance of astorage manager, e.g., storage manager 440, may be deployed within theair-gapped storage site to facilitate the replication and restoration ofdata to a primary site.

FIG. 4 comprises an instance of the storage manager 440 for performingrestoration and potentially testing of the restored application data430.

Additional description regarding testing of data stored within anair-gapped storage site 360, can be found below with respect to FIG. 7 .

Air-Gapped Configuration During a Disaster Recovery Process

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating a scalable information managementsystem comprising air-gapped configuration during a disaster recoveryprocess from an air-gapped data storage site. In this configuration,production data e.g., the infected primary data 340 in FIG. 5 , andbackup copies of the production, e.g., the infected secondary copies318, have been compromised with a virus or malware. Using the securecopies stored within an air-gapped environment, data and services lostare restored and recovered.

At step 1, as indicated by the arrow with “1”, secure copies 320 arereplicated to the secondary storage pool 350 using a secure tunneldescribed in FIG. 3 . The replication operation creates a “tertiarycopy” 510. The tertiary copy 510 is stored and comprises the same backupdata as the secure copy and a corresponding secondary copy (before beingcompromised by a virus).

In another embodiment, the air-gapped data storage site 360 furthercomprises secure copies of index(es) 326 and deduplication databases 324which are used to store the secure copies 320 within the air-gappedenvironment and to maintain that data throughout its lifecycle. Forexample, similarly to secondary storage subsystem that performs variousmaintenance operations such as aging, pruning, deduplication etc, theair-gapped storage site may do so as well. During step 1, the index(es)326 and deduplication databases 324 may also be replicated to thesecondary storage pool to replace the any infected/compromised indexesand deduplication databases that the secondary storage pool 350 used inmaintain the secondary copies.

In a typical air-gapped storage site 360 the air-gapped media agent 310is configured to perform a limited number of backup and maintenanceoperations on the data is hosts. During a disaster recovery phase, aninstance of a storage manager, e.g., storage manager 440, may bedeployed within the air-gapped storage site to facilitate thereplication and restoration of data to a primary site.

In another embodiment, the 360 the air-gapped media agent 310 isconfigured to perform disaster recovery procedures under specialcircumstances that are initiated in accordance with a pre-approvedprocess and pursuant to a valid authorization.

At step 2, indicated by a solid arrow with “2”, the secondary storagepool performs a restoration operation of the tertiary copy 510 to theprimary data site to recreate the primary data (recovered primary data520). Once the restoration process is complete, the primary site isready to provide services and access to the primary data.

At step 3, indicated by a solid arrow with “3”, the secondary storagepool 350 promotes the tertiary copy to a “secondary copy.” With thispromotion, normal backup and data protection operations and services mayresume, as indicated by step 4, which illustrates an execution of anincremental backup operation of the recovered primary data to update thenow “secondary copy” 510.

Secure-Copy Replication to Air-Gapped Data Storage Environment

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of an embodiment for secure-copy replication toair-gapped data storage environment.

At block 602, process 600 is initiated when, at an unpredictable time,the system obtains or retrieves metadata relating to data stored at aprimary site, for which a secure copy has not been created for yet.Initiating the replication of data to an air-gapped data storageenvironment at an unpredictable time provides an additional layer ofsecurity.

For example, the replication process may be initiated within a specifiedwindow of time but at a random point within that window. This window oftime may be determined or provided in accordance of/by an informationmanagement policy.

At block 604, using the metadata the process then determines whether asecure copy within the air-gapped data storage environment, e,g., theair-gapped data storage pool 360, needs to be updated. Thisdetermination may be based on preferences or criteria provided in aninformation management policy or RPO requirements. For example, tominimize the connection time to the air-gapped environment, a system orpolicy may require a higher minimum data requirement before setting up aconnection to the outside environment. In another embodiment, loss ofdata is more critical and therefore a lower minimum of data transfer maybe preferred. Other factors may include time of day, location of data,user, modification metadata, application type, cost of computingresources, services provided by the primary site, available bandwidth,etc. Preferences or criteria used in the process of determining whetherto update a secure copy are not limited to the examples provided above.

If the system determines that a secure copy(ies) 320 should be updated,the process proceeds to block 606 to setup a tunnel for datatransmission.

At block 606, the air-gapped data storage site 360, the air-gapped mediaagent 310 with the air-gap replication handler, establishes a tunnel fordata transmission. In an embodiment, the data tunnel or data connectionis configured to operate under various security modes. For example, thetunnel may be configured to have a “secure-copy” operation mode forreplication, or a maintenance mode for receiving updates to the softwaremodules operating within the air-gapped storage site. Each of the modesmay have different settings and/or permissions associated with it. Forexample, under a replication or secure-copy mode, the data tunnel allowsload-bearing traffic to be pulled from a secondary storage site. Butunder a maintenance mode, the tunnel may only be open to non-loadbearing traffic. Yet another mode may be an “air gap mode” under whichthe air-gapped data storage site 360 is offline and no transmissionsto/from the air-gapped data storage site 360 are possible.

At block 608, a connection with the storage device(s) storing therelevant secondary copies of data blocks is established.

At block 610, the air-gapped media agent initiates a replication job toreceive data to update the secure copy at the air-gapped data storagepool 360.

At block 612, immediately after receiving all relevant data from thesecondary storage pool 350, the tunnel connection is broken. In anembodiment where the secure tunnel uses modes of operations, theair-gapped media agent 310 changes the mode from “replication” toanother mode, such as “air-gap” mode which terminates all transmissionsto/from the air-gapped data storage site 360.

Testing Secure-Copies at an Air-Gapped Data Storage Site

FIG. 7 is a flow diagram of an embodiment, process 700, for testingsecure-copies at an air-gapped data storage site.

At block 702, the process receives or identifies an instruction orcommand to test a secure copy. The initial instruction or command may beinitiated by a user or automated as part of a disaster recoveryprocedure before any secure copies are replicated to anotherenvironment.

For additional security, at block 704, the system may (as designatedwith a dashed outline) take the primary data site offline to minimizerisk of a virus transmission from the primary data site.

At block 706, the system instantiates and configures an instance of astorage manager, e.g., storage manager 440, within the same air-gappedstorage environment that hosts the secure copy intended for testing.

At block 708, the storage manager restores a secure copy stored withinthe air-gapped storage environment, e.g., the air-gapped data storagepool 360, to another computing device within the air-gapped storageenvironment, to its original application data format.

At block 710, the system may execute read-only transactions and/orcommands on the restored application data to test the authenticity ofthe data. These transactions and/or commands may be initiated by a useror may be performed as a script. In another embodiment, the nature ofthe testing of restored data is provided by an information managementpolicy.

Recovering Primary Data from Secure Copies

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram of an embodiment, process 800, for recovering asecure copy(ies) 320 from an air-gapped data storage pool 360. Process800 is particularly applicable in a scenario where a primary(production) data site is infected with ransomware/malware whichultimately spreads to secondary copies of the primary data stored at asecondary storage environment, such as the secondary storage pool 350 inFIG. 5 .

At block 802, the process receives or identifies an instruction forcreating a tertiary copy, e.g., tertiary copy 510, at a secondarystorage environment, e.g., the secondary storage pool 350. The tertiarycopy is generally a replicated copy of a secure copy stored andmaintained within an air-gapped storage environment, such as theair-gapped data storage pool 360.

At block 804, using a one-way network topology, the system replicatesthe secure copy to the secondary storage pool, thereby creating atertiary copy. The secondary storage pool may be hosted by a third-partycloud hosting system.

At block 806, the system restores the tertiary copy to a “clean” primarydata site free of malware. The restoration process creates applicationdata, e.g., recovered primary data 520, ready and available for use byservices and applications.

At block 808, the tertiary copy may be promoted to secondary copy(indicated by label 3 in FIG. 5 ). The purpose behind this promotion isto speed up the disaster recovery process and minimize use of networkresources because a full backup of the recovered primary data would notbe necessary.

Upon completion of recovering primary data, the process, at block 810,may initiate an incremental backup of the newly recovered primary data.

In regard to the figures described herein, other embodiments arepossible within the scope of the present invention, such that theabove-recited components, steps, blocks, operations, messages, requests,queries, and/or instructions are differently arranged, sequenced,sub-divided, organized, and/or combined. In some embodiments, adifferent component may initiate or execute a given operation. Forexample, in some embodiments, the air-gapped media agent may beconfigured to perform testing or restoration procedures, while in otherembodiments, those operations are configured within the storage managerdeployed within the air-gapped storage site.

Example Embodiments

Some example enumerated embodiments of the present invention are recitedin this section in the form of methods, systems, and non-transitorycomputer-readable media, without limitation.

In some aspects, the techniques described herein relate to acomputer-implemented system, the computer-implemented system including:one or more secondary storage devices, wherein the one or more secondarystorage devices includes a media agent for facilitating storing andmanaging secondary copies stored within the one or more secondarystorage devices, wherein the one or more secondary storage devices isconfigured to store and manage secondary copies of primary data storedat a primary site; and an air-gapped data storage environment, whereinthe air-gapped data storage environment includes: an instance of astorage manager, wherein the storage manager is configured to restoresecure copies stored at the air-gapped data storage environment, withinthe air-gapped data storage environment, an air-gapped media agent forfacilitating storing and managing the secure copies stored within theair-gapped data storage environment, the air-gapped data storageenvironment configured to: obtain or retrieve metadata relating to theprimary data stored at the primary site, for which a secure copy has notbeen created for yet, wherein the metadata is obtained or retrieved atan unpredictable time; using the metadata, determine that a secure copywithin the air-gapped data storage environment needs to be created orupdated; in response to determining that the secure copy within theair-gapped data storage environment needs to be created or updated:establish a secure one-way data connection for data transmission,wherein the secure one-way data connection allows load-bearing trafficto be pulled from the one or more secondary storage devices to theair-gapped data storage environment; initiate a replication job toreceive data to create or update the secure copy at the air-gapped datastorage environment; and immediately upon receipt of data, terminate thesecure one-way data connection to the one or more secondary storagedevices.

In some aspects, the techniques described herein relate to acomputer-implemented method for replicating secure copies of data toair-gapped storage environment, the computer-implemented methodincluding: obtaining or retrieving metadata relating to primary datastored at a primary site, wherein the metadata is obtained or retrievedat an unpredictable time, wherein the metadata is stored at one or moresecondary storage devices, wherein the one or more secondary storagedevices includes a media agent for facilitating storing and managingsecondary copies stored within the one or more secondary storagedevices, wherein the one or more secondary storage devices is configuredto store and manage secondary copies of the primary data stored at theprimary site; using the metadata, determining that a secure copy withinan air-gapped data storage environment needs to be created or updated,wherein the air-gapped data storage environment includes: an instance ofa storage manager, wherein the storage manager is configured to restoresecure copies stored at the air-gapped data storage environment, withinthe air-gapped data storage environment, and an air-gapped media agent,wherein the air-gapped media agent is configured to store and manage thesecure copies stored within the air-gapped data storage environment; andin response to determining that the secure copy within the air-gappeddata storage environment needs to be created or updated: establishing asecure one-way data connection for data transmission, wherein the secureone-way data connection allows load-bearing traffic to be pulled fromthe one or more secondary storage devices to the air-gapped data storageenvironment; initiating a replication job to receive data to create orupdate the secure copy at the air-gapped data storage environment;immediately upon receipt of data, terminating the secure one-way dataconnection with the one or more secondary storage devices.

In other embodiments according to the present invention, a system orsystems operates according to one or more of the methods and/orcomputer-readable media recited in the preceding paragraphs. In yetother embodiments, a method or methods operates according to one or moreof the systems and/or computer-readable media recited in the precedingparagraphs. In yet more embodiments, a non-transitory computer-readablemedium or media causes one or more computing devices having one or moreprocessors and computer-readable memory to operate according to one ormore of the systems and/or methods recited in the preceding paragraphs.

Terminology

Conditional language, such as, among others, “can,” “could,” “might,” or“may,” unless specifically stated otherwise, or otherwise understoodwithin the context as used, is generally intended to convey that certainembodiments include, while other embodiments do not include, certainfeatures, elements and/or steps. Thus, such conditional language is notgenerally intended to imply that features, elements and/or steps are inany way required for one or more embodiments or that one or moreembodiments necessarily include logic for deciding, with or without userinput or prompting, whether these features, elements and/or steps areincluded or are to be performed in any particular embodiment. Unless thecontext clearly requires otherwise, throughout the description and theclaims, the words “comprise,” “comprising,” and the like are to beconstrued in an inclusive sense, as opposed to an exclusive orexhaustive sense, i.e., in the sense of “including, but not limited to.”As used herein, the terms “connected,” “coupled,” or any variant thereofmeans any connection or coupling, either direct or indirect, between twoor more elements; the coupling or connection between the elements can bephysical, logical, or a combination thereof. Additionally, the words“herein,” “above,” “below,” and words of similar import, when used inthis application, refer to this application as a whole and not to anyparticular portions of this application. Where the context permits,words using the singular or plural number may also include the plural orsingular number respectively. The word “or” in reference to a list oftwo or more items, covers all of the following interpretations of theword: any one of the items in the list, all of the items in the list,and any combination of the items in the list. Likewise the term “and/or”in reference to a list of two or more items, covers all of the followinginterpretations of the word: any one of the items in the list, all ofthe items in the list, and any combination of the items in the list.

In some embodiments, certain operations, acts, events, or functions ofany of the algorithms described herein can be performed in a differentsequence, can be added, merged, or left out altogether (e.g., not allare necessary for the practice of the algorithms). In certainembodiments, operations, acts, functions, or events can be performedconcurrently, e.g., through multi-threaded processing, interruptprocessing, or multiple processors or processor cores or on otherparallel architectures, rather than sequentially. Systems and modulesdescribed herein may comprise software, firmware, hardware, or anycombination(s) of software, firmware, or hardware suitable for thepurposes described. Software and other modules may reside and execute onservers, workstations, personal computers, computerized tablets, PDAs,and other computing devices suitable for the purposes described herein.Software and other modules may be accessible via local computer memory,via a network, via a browser, or via other means suitable for thepurposes described herein. Data structures described herein may comprisecomputer files, variables, programming arrays, programming structures,or any electronic information storage schemes or methods, or anycombinations thereof, suitable for the purposes described herein. Userinterface elements described herein may comprise elements from graphicaluser interfaces, interactive voice response, command line interfaces,and other suitable interfaces.

Further, processing of the various components of the illustrated systemscan be distributed across multiple machines, networks, and othercomputing resources. Two or more components of a system can be combinedinto fewer components. Various components of the illustrated systems canbe implemented in one or more virtual machines, rather than in dedicatedcomputer hardware systems and/or computing devices. Likewise, the datarepositories shown can represent physical and/or logical data storage,including, e.g., storage area networks or other distributed storagesystems. Moreover, in some embodiments the connections between thecomponents shown represent possible paths of data flow, rather thanactual connections between hardware. While some examples of possibleconnections are shown, any of the subset of the components shown cancommunicate with any other subset of components in variousimplementations. Embodiments are also described above with reference toflow chart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus(systems) and computer program products. Each block of the flow chartillustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in theflow chart illustrations and/or block diagrams, may be implemented bycomputer program instructions. Such instructions may be provided to aprocessor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer,specially-equipped computer (e.g., comprising a high-performancedatabase server, a graphics subsystem, etc.) or other programmable dataprocessing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions,which execute via the processor(s) of the computer or other programmabledata processing apparatus, create means for implementing the actsspecified in the flow chart and/or block diagram block or blocks. Thesecomputer program instructions may also be stored in a non-transitorycomputer-readable memory that can direct a computer or otherprogrammable data processing apparatus to operate in a particularmanner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readablememory produce an article of manufacture including instruction meanswhich implement the acts specified in the flow chart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks. The computer program instructions may also beloaded to a computing device or other programmable data processingapparatus to cause operations to be performed on the computing device orother programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented processsuch that the instructions which execute on the computing device orother programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing the actsspecified in the flow chart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

Any patents and applications and other references noted above, includingany that may be listed in accompanying filing papers, are incorporatedherein by reference. Aspects of the invention can be modified, ifnecessary, to employ the systems, functions, and concepts of the variousreferences described above to provide yet further implementations of theinvention. These and other changes can be made to the invention in lightof the above Detailed Description. While the above description describescertain examples of the invention, and describes the best modecontemplated, no matter how detailed the above appears in text, theinvention can be practiced in many ways. Details of the system may varyconsiderably in its specific implementation, while still beingencompassed by the invention disclosed herein. As noted above,particular terminology used when describing certain features or aspectsof the invention should not be taken to imply that the terminology isbeing redefined herein to be restricted to any specific characteristics,features, or aspects of the invention with which that terminology isassociated. In general, the terms used in the following claims shouldnot be construed to limit the invention to the specific examplesdisclosed in the specification, unless the above Detailed Descriptionsection explicitly defines such terms. Accordingly, the actual scope ofthe invention encompasses not only the disclosed examples, but also allequivalent ways of practicing or implementing the invention under theclaims.

To reduce the number of claims, certain aspects of the invention arepresented below in certain claim forms, but the applicant contemplatesother aspects of the invention in any number of claim forms. Forexample, while only one aspect of the invention is recited as ameans-plus-function claim under 35 U.S.C sec. 112(f) (AIA), otheraspects may likewise be embodied as a means-plus-function claim, or inother forms, such as being embodied in a computer-readable medium. Anyclaims intended to be treated under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) will begin withthe words “means for,” but use of the term “for” in any other context isnot intended to invoke treatment under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f). Accordingly,the applicant reserves the right to pursue additional claims afterfiling this application, in either this application or in a continuingapplication.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented system, thecomputer-implemented system comprising: one or more secondary storagedevices, wherein the one or more secondary storage devices comprises amedia agent for facilitating storing and managing secondary copiesstored within the one or more secondary storage devices, wherein the oneor more secondary storage devices is configured to store and managesecondary copies of primary data stored at a primary site; and anair-gapped data storage environment, wherein the air-gapped data storageenvironment comprises: an instance of a storage manager, wherein thestorage manager is configured to restore secure copies stored at theair-gapped data storage environment, within the air-gapped data storageenvironment, an air-gapped media agent for facilitating storing andmanaging the secure copies stored within the air-gapped data storageenvironment, the air-gapped data storage environment configured to:obtain or retrieve metadata relating to the primary data stored at theprimary site, for which a secure copy has not been created for yet,wherein the metadata is obtained or retrieved at an unpredictable time;using the metadata, determine that a secure copy within the air-gappeddata storage environment needs to be created or updated; in response todetermining that the secure copy within the air-gapped data storageenvironment needs to be created or updated:  establish a secure one-waydata connection for data transmission, wherein the secure one-way dataconnection allows load-bearing traffic to be pulled from the one or moresecondary storage devices to the air-gapped data storage environment; initiate a replication job to receive data to create or update thesecure copy at the air-gapped data storage environment; and  immediatelyupon receipt of data, terminate the secure one-way data connection tothe one or more secondary storage devices.
 2. The computer-implementedsystem of claim 1, wherein the determination to create a secure copy ofdata is based on preferences or criteria provided in an informationmanagement policy or RPO requirements.
 3. The computer-implementedsystem of claim 2, wherein the preferences or criteria in theinformation management policy comprises threshold requirements forestablishing a connection to the air-gapped data storage environment. 4.The computer-implemented system of claim 2, wherein the preferences orcriteria in the information management policy comprises one or more of:a time of day, a geographic location of the primary data, useridentification, metadata, an application type, cost of computingresources, a type of service available by the primary site, andavailable bandwidth at the primary site.
 5. The computer-implementedsystem of claim 1, wherein a data connection between the one or moresecondary storage devices and the air-gapped data storage environment isconfigured to operate according to one or more security modes.
 6. Thecomputer-implemented system of claim 5, wherein the one or more securitymodes comprises a secure-copy mode, wherein the secure-copy mode allowsload-bearing traffic to be pulled from the one or more secondary storagedevices.
 7. The computer-implemented system of claim 5, wherein the oneor more security modes comprises a maintenance mode, wherein in themaintenance mode, the data connection may only be open to non-loadbearing traffic.
 8. The computer-implemented system of claim 5, whereinthe one or more security modes comprises an air-gapped mode, whereinduring the air-gapped mode the air-gapped data storage environment isoffline and no transmissions to or from the air-gapped data storageenvironment are possible.
 9. The computer-implemented system of claim 5,wherein the termination of the secure one-way data connection compriseschanging the one or more security modes of the data connection toanother security mode.
 10. A computer-implemented method for replicatingsecure copies of data to air-gapped storage environment, thecomputer-implemented method comprising: obtaining or retrieving metadatarelating to primary data stored at a primary site, wherein the metadatais obtained or retrieved at an unpredictable time, wherein the metadatais stored at one or more secondary storage devices, wherein the one ormore secondary storage devices comprises a media agent for facilitatingstoring and managing secondary copies stored within the one or moresecondary storage devices, wherein the one or more secondary storagedevices is configured to store and manage secondary copies of theprimary data stored at the primary site; using the metadata, determiningthat a secure copy within an air-gapped data storage environment needsto be created or updated, wherein the air-gapped data storageenvironment comprises: an instance of a storage manager, wherein thestorage manager is configured to restore secure copies stored at theair-gapped data storage environment, within the air-gapped data storageenvironment, and an air-gapped media agent, wherein the air-gapped mediaagent is configured to store and manage the secure copies stored withinthe air-gapped data storage environment; and in response to determiningthat the secure copy within the air-gapped data storage environmentneeds to be created or updated: establishing a secure one-way dataconnection for data transmission, wherein the secure one-way dataconnection allows load-bearing traffic to be pulled from the one or moresecondary storage devices to the air-gapped data storage environment;initiating a replication job to receive data to create or update thesecure copy at the air-gapped data storage environment; immediately uponreceipt of data, terminating the secure one-way data connection with theone or more secondary storage devices.
 11. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 10, wherein the determination to create a secure copy ofdata is based on preferences or criteria provided in an informationmanagement policy or RPO requirements.
 12. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 11, wherein the preferences or criteria in theinformation management policy comprises threshold requirements forestablishing a connection to the air-gapped data storage environment.13. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein the preferencesor criteria in the information management policy comprises one or moreof: a time of day, a geographic location of the primary data, useridentification, metadata, an application type, cost of computingresources, a type of service available by the primary site, andavailable bandwidth at the primary site.
 14. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 10, wherein a data connection between the one or moresecondary storage devices and the air-gapped data storage environment isconfigured to operate according to one or more security modes.
 15. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the one or moresecurity modes comprises a secure-copy mode, wherein the secure-copymode allows load-bearing traffic to be pulled from the one or moresecondary storage devices.
 16. The computer-implemented method of claim14, wherein the one or more security modes comprises a maintenance mode,wherein in the maintenance mode, the data connection may only be open tonon-load bearing traffic.
 17. The computer-implemented method of claim14, wherein the one or more security modes comprises an air-gapped mode,wherein during the air-gapped mode the air-gapped data storageenvironment is offline and no transmissions to or from the air-gappeddata storage environment are possible.
 18. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 14, wherein the termination of the secure one-way dataconnection comprises changing the one or more security modes of the dataconnection to another security mode.